[Afseth] Luka Dončić mentioned he’s still adjusting to playing off the ball, so I was curious if any particular elements stand out in the process: “Just overall. Just playing without the ball. Just all of it.”
November 13, 2024
[Afseth] Luka Dončić mentioned he’s still adjusting to playing off the ball, so I was curious if any particular elements stand out in the process: “Just overall. Just playing without the ball. Just all of it.”
13 comments
He should adjust to feeding the hot hand in the fourth instead of taking unnecessary shots
Luka lets be real, you need to cut weight if you want to play some good off-ball game, you look really slow & heavy on the court, you’re even struggling to create your own shot in the clutch & it clearly showed last night
Standing in the corner doing nothing then getting the ball to take a stepback 3 or take 15s to get in the paint just to pass it to the open shooter ain’t off-ball, its iso & taking possessions off
Playing off-ball means you need to cut to the basket, move around the perimeter, get urself open, take C&S 3s, set screens… but unfortunately you can’t do half of that with your current shape & conditioning, otherwise you’ll breakdown in the 1st quarter of the game
I’ve been saying I think that’s all thats wrong with the team right now and it will correct itself over time. Luka is too ridiculously talented to not figure this out.
The most telling stat I saw last year was Player Usage and NBA championships. The highest ever to win was MJ and I believe it was just about 50%. Most of his career, usage was in the 40s iirc. Luka being above 90 I think for every year, well, old heads have been telling us it can’t work for a few years now. Kidds meeting with Phil and what he told us after made it clear that the goal is to lower his usage and find the way to make him be still as effective as Kobe and MJ were, or as effective as Luka himself has been, just with less work hopefully. 🙏
Edit: ok I was wildly off on Lukas usage. Not sure where I got that number but maybe one day I’ll figure it out.
this is a great opportunity for Luka to take his game to the next level. im happy to see him say it out loud
Start some cuts the the basket at this point. It just looks like he’s just standing out there and not really contributing when the ball isn’t in his hands.
Luka needs to play the 4. At 6’8, he can be more useful as a banger down in the paint if he’s going to remain at the size he is. He already knows he’s not going get favorable calls from the refs anyway, he might as well throw his weight around and whatever happens happens.
If Luka made the change to lift more weights, he could literally have the potential to be the GOAT if he wanted to.
I guess it’s good that Luka is *trying* to play off ball but I feel like so far it’s just been “alright the ball isn’t in my hands, let me just stand here and watch someone else iso”.
Hopefully as he gets better at it he starts to do a bit more.
Study some Steph tape for what to do off ball. Maybe it would help him learn to shoot, be clutch, be in shape and be a winner as well.
damn these comments the past few days. Yall dont deserve Luka, i hope he asks out sooner rather then later
The problem with playing off-ball is that Luka doesn’t do anything but park himself in the bottom corner of the half court and waits until the rest of the team can’t create something to then ask for the ball with the shot clock winding down
Why are we trying to develop a top 2 playmaker in the league, which has been able to run some of the best offenses in the league every year, even some years with really subpar rosters, to play off-ball instead? Maximize what he does well instead & work on the actual problems which will elevate his game.
This is such pivotal season for Luka. Does he decide he wants to win? Or is he content just putting on a show?
![[Afseth] Luka Dončić mentioned he's still adjusting to playing off the ball, so I was curious if any particular elements stand out in the process: "Just overall. Just playing without the ball. Just all of it."](https://www.rawchili.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/78yuxOKwLNueTgSCLyXj6LNvjDeZINWot8wLXMJTHPI.jpg)
13 comments
He should adjust to feeding the hot hand in the fourth instead of taking unnecessary shots
Luka lets be real, you need to cut weight if you want to play some good off-ball game, you look really slow & heavy on the court, you’re even struggling to create your own shot in the clutch & it clearly showed last night
Standing in the corner doing nothing then getting the ball to take a stepback 3 or take 15s to get in the paint just to pass it to the open shooter ain’t off-ball, its iso & taking possessions off
Playing off-ball means you need to cut to the basket, move around the perimeter, get urself open, take C&S 3s, set screens… but unfortunately you can’t do half of that with your current shape & conditioning, otherwise you’ll breakdown in the 1st quarter of the game
I’ve been saying I think that’s all thats wrong with the team right now and it will correct itself over time. Luka is too ridiculously talented to not figure this out.
The most telling stat I saw last year was Player Usage and NBA championships. The highest ever to win was MJ and I believe it was just about 50%. Most of his career, usage was in the 40s iirc. Luka being above 90 I think for every year, well, old heads have been telling us it can’t work for a few years now. Kidds meeting with Phil and what he told us after made it clear that the goal is to lower his usage and find the way to make him be still as effective as Kobe and MJ were, or as effective as Luka himself has been, just with less work hopefully. 🙏
Edit: ok I was wildly off on Lukas usage. Not sure where I got that number but maybe one day I’ll figure it out.
Here’s the list of all time usage rates for NBA champions from highest on down. Luka isn’t that far away but I guess there’s still something to it
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/highest-usage-rate-nba-player-to-win-a-championship
A little off ball movement might be nice.
this is a great opportunity for Luka to take his game to the next level. im happy to see him say it out loud
Start some cuts the the basket at this point. It just looks like he’s just standing out there and not really contributing when the ball isn’t in his hands.
Luka needs to play the 4. At 6’8, he can be more useful as a banger down in the paint if he’s going to remain at the size he is. He already knows he’s not going get favorable calls from the refs anyway, he might as well throw his weight around and whatever happens happens.
If Luka made the change to lift more weights, he could literally have the potential to be the GOAT if he wanted to.
I guess it’s good that Luka is *trying* to play off ball but I feel like so far it’s just been “alright the ball isn’t in my hands, let me just stand here and watch someone else iso”.
Hopefully as he gets better at it he starts to do a bit more.
Study some Steph tape for what to do off ball. Maybe it would help him learn to shoot, be clutch, be in shape and be a winner as well.
damn these comments the past few days. Yall dont deserve Luka, i hope he asks out sooner rather then later
The problem with playing off-ball is that Luka doesn’t do anything but park himself in the bottom corner of the half court and waits until the rest of the team can’t create something to then ask for the ball with the shot clock winding down
Why are we trying to develop a top 2 playmaker in the league, which has been able to run some of the best offenses in the league every year, even some years with really subpar rosters, to play off-ball instead? Maximize what he does well instead & work on the actual problems which will elevate his game.
This is such pivotal season for Luka. Does he decide he wants to win? Or is he content just putting on a show?
Luka 2.0 = Mavs easily win 60 games
Luka 1.0 = Mavs bumble around 6th seed