Luka has done something I havent seen before. Other teams doubling him even on our half court, as soon as he is bringing up the ball.
He has done his part in forcing other teams doubling him. If RC and the team dont figure out how to punish the teams for doing that, which should be easy to counter, then it is going to wear down Luka, and the team overall.
If RC and the team figures out how to punish teams doubling Luka, well then everything goes back to normal, with Mavs dominating on offense.
Second thing is teams are punishing him with hard fouls as that is not being called. This is up to the refs and this should and will get better.
Skip is a Spurs Fan, tho it double hurts
(01-14-2020, 02:35 PM)sefant Wrote: [ -> ]Skip is a Spurs Fan, tho it double hurts
The only thing Skip is a fan of is Skip
(01-14-2020, 11:08 AM)michaeltex Wrote: [ -> ]Do you say that LeBron, Giannis or Harden never lag on defense while arguing a non-call?
Giannis doesn´t. LeBron and Harden do but they aren´t getting distracted. Luka takes himself out of the game for more than a single possession and loses his focus. LeBron and Harden don´t play any worse when they start to argue. Luka does.
Bad mindset Luka makes bad decisions on the basketball court and in the last two games he needed the halftime break to snap out of it.
(01-14-2020, 11:08 AM)michaeltex Wrote: [ -> ]If he's in the MVP conversation, he should get the same respect as the other guys. Sometimes I feel like the refs want to make the young guys "pay their dues" before getting the calls they deserve.
I agree but only to a certain degree. In the last few weeks officiating changed in the entire league and the refs are allowing more contact in the paint. Harden and Giannis for example averaged less freethrows in december and january compared to october and november. LeBron is only 22nd in FTA.
I think Luka is right were he belongs at 4th in the league in FTA. He probably should get more calls in the paint but the same can be said for any of them except for Harden. A player of his size and weight that initiates a lot of contact won´t get the call all the time. Has been the same story for LeBron and Giannis.
I love to watch Luka but I do think that we are allowed to mention his flaws and point out his mistakes. People certainly love to do the same with any other player (Powell, THJ or Brunson).
In my opinion RC should take action now because I don´t want Luka to develop bad habbits. I don´t want to watch a flopping and whining Harden 2.0.
I don´t want to watch a franchise player that loses the ball, blames his teammates and doesn´t play defense. That´s what I saw in the 1st half of the last two games.
I understand his frustration with the refs or his teammates but there are better ways to handle those situations but maybe I am spoiled because we had the perfect non drama franchise player for the last 20 years.
(01-14-2020, 04:45 PM)dirkfansince1998 Wrote: [ -> ] (01-14-2020, 11:08 AM)michaeltex Wrote: [ -> ]Do you say that LeBron, Giannis or Harden never lag on defense while arguing a non-call?
Giannis doesn´t. LeBron and Harden do but they aren´t getting distracted. Luka takes himself out of the game for more than a single possession and loses his focus. LeBron and Harden don´t play any worse when they start to argue. Luka does.
Bad mindset Luka makes bad decisions on the basketball court and in the last two games he needed the halftime break to snap out of it.
(01-14-2020, 11:08 AM)michaeltex Wrote: [ -> ]If he's in the MVP conversation, he should get the same respect as the other guys. Sometimes I feel like the refs want to make the young guys "pay their dues" before getting the calls they deserve.
I agree but only to a certain degree. In the last few weeks officiating changed in the entire league and the refs are allowing more contact in the paint. Harden and Giannis for example averaged less freethrows in december and january compared to october and november. LeBron is only 22nd in FTA.
I think Luka is right were he belongs at 4th in the league in FTA. He probably should get more calls in the paint but the same can be said for any of them except for Harden. A player of his size and weight that initiates a lot of contact won´t get the call all the time. Has been the same story for LeBron and Giannis.
I love to watch Luka but I do think that we are allowed to mention his flaws and point out his mistakes. People certainly love to do the same with any other player (Powell, THJ or Brunson). TRUE
In my opinion RC should take action now because I don´t want Luka to develop bad habbits. I don´t want to watch a flopping and whining Harden 2.0. I don´t want to watch a franchise player that loses the ball, blames his teammates and doesn´t play defense. That´s what I saw in the 1st half of the last two games. THIS+100.
I understand his frustration with the refs or his teammates but there are better ways to handle those situations but maybe I am spoiled because we had the perfect non drama franchise player for the last 20 years. And This+100!
Maybe Dirk spoiled me too but I love seeing players get to their spot regardless of defense and go to town;passing out of traps as needed. High speed ball games with lots of FTAs dont do it for me. Its one thing to draw fouls looking to score or get to your spot but players just looking for/selling and trying to create contact ALL game long is boring to watch. And thats both when the refs call all the tick tack calls or when they "let em play". Basketball should be about the more skilled players/team scoring not pretending to try to score so you can shoot FTs. Part of what makes good vets in my eyes is they balance using all their different skills to score and know when to risk a play selling a call. But gotta love fundamentals, posting up/footwork,shot/ball/head fakes etc, along with defense and rebounding which is done best with more sizable players on the court.
I have been very critical of Doncic and RC over the last month because I see the same things over and over. Poor shot selection, inefficiency on offense, and laziness on defense.
I don’t care what, if anything, RC is doing in the background. It is not working. The bench and minutes are a coach’s best friends. Even Luka should not be above that when it comes to sending him a message.
What is the fear? We lose a transcendent player who will want out of here? Selfish, inefficient players have never won anything as a lead dog in their lives. I am sure he did not play this way in the Euroleague. This is the time to correct it.
I saw Aikman’s quote about Jimmy over the weekend. This is where RC is failing as a coach currently.
“We had a rough start, went through some difficult times, had stretches when we didn’t speak. What I’ve learned though in life is we remember those who make us better. Jimmy made me better”
(01-15-2020, 08:26 AM)hakeemfan Wrote: [ -> ]I have been very critical of Doncic and RC over the last month because I see the same things over and over. Poor shot selection, inefficiency on offense, and laziness on defense.
I don’t care what, if anything, RC is doing in the background. It is not working. The bench and minutes are a coach’s best friends. Even Luka should not be above that when it comes to sending him a message.
What is the fear? We lose a transcendent player who will want out of here? Selfish, inefficient players have never won anything as a lead dog in their lives. I am sure he did not play this way in the Euroleague. This is the time to correct it.
I saw Aikman’s quote about Jimmy over the weekend. This is where RC is failing as a coach currently.
“We had a rough start, went through some difficult times, had stretches when we didn’t speak. What I’ve learned though in life is we remember those who make us better. Jimmy made me better”
1. Luka is spending unbelievable amount of energy creating on offense. Please let me remind you - historically most efficient offense. So all this "poor shot selection and inefficiency on offense" leads to most efficient offense. Are you really sure you are not overly critical and focus on trees instead of the whole forrest? Luka is taking tough threes. But he is taking them to keep defense honest, which gives him more room to drive - one inefficient shot leads to numerous efficient ones. I have never seen an opposing defense that would just dare Luka to shoot open threes.
2. Driving attack after attack is taking huge amounts of energy. I don't think there is any player that can endure this through whole season. Luka is not a problem. The problem is, that other Mavs players are just looking at him to do some magic without helping him a lot. I think it has become clear that all the demands are taking a toll on his performance. But he is not the one putting together the team or coaching it.
3. Spending this huge amounts of energy also results in less effort on defense.
4.
I think you are way overly critical, speaking like Luka is a problem in Dallas. Yes, less effort on defense makes me angry too, but you have to take a look at the whole picture. He has made a huge jump in production from last season and greatly contributed to Mavs becoming a winning team. He lifted his performance so much that a line of 20-8-2 in an easy victory is considered as alarmingly bad performance. Yes, I agree he needs to become better and improve. However, it is obvious he is working on all aspects of the game. So far he only had one summer to improve.
The historically most efficient offense part is fool’s gold. Others have mentioned certain things on how this efficiency is measured. Plus we have seen how they fare against elite teams or even against average teams when the game is close and they don’t seem to have any go to plays at all in the half court.
Luka is doing too much. I agree. Most of that is his own fault and RC’s. He cannot seem to stay away from the ball. He forces a ton of terrible shots. Those things are on him. He is working hard instead of working smart.
To say that affects his defense. Agreed Yes. Most very good offensive players really were not constantly great 2 way players. Even Kobe and MJ who were lauded picked their spots. Players like Bron and Kawhi are rare exceptions. However there are many sequences where Luka gives no effort at all. That has to change. I am fine with him picking spots to bring his A level defense but there has to be more constant effort throughout the game.
We all want him to be the best he can be. It is very difficult to correct bad habits later. That’s why some of these things have to be corrected now.
All of what omahen said plus one more thing:
I don't think Luka is selfish at all, but has a tendency to take all the scoring burden when his teammates struggle. The result is the same, Luka tries to do it all, but the intention behind it is a huge difference. He's also an emotional person and young , so he might get carried away sometimes. Man, this guy is the undisputed leader of this team at 20, give him some time to figure out the nuances and control the emotions.
(01-15-2020, 09:31 AM)Halfnir Wrote: [ -> ]All of what omahen said plus one more thing:
I don't think Luka is selfish at all, but has a tendency to take all the scoring burden when his teammates struggle. The result is the same, Luka tries to do it all, but the intention behind it is a huge difference. He's also an emotional person and young , so he might get carried away sometimes. Man, this guy is the undisputed leader of this team at 20, give him some time to figure out the nuances and control the emotions.
We just disagree. Your post is just plain enabling/ excuse making for a lot of bad things that he does that can be controlled.
He is the leader because he is the most talented player on the roster by a mile. So no one can say anything. A weaker supporting cast by itself is not an excuse for heroball offense or minimal effort on defense. I wish he had a veteran who was also playing well so that he could firmly correct Luka since RC seems unwilling.
The talk last year was that Europeans play the right way as opposed to selfish American teens who are used to AAU. Now that Luka is playing exactly that way it is because he is young, a leader, and is emotional. Nice.
This conversation is a little too black and white for my taste. Luka needs to get better and Rick needs to help him, yes.
But hf, I don't see how you paint Luka's play as hero ball. I don't like some of his late game 3s, but he generally takes what the game gives him.
And you can't accurately describe his game by pointing at 3s you don't like. The greater (quantity) portion of his offenses centers around probing the interior of the defense.
And letting the refs take him off his game or failing to get back on D is something he has to correct for sure, but do you know that he's not working on it.
And RC is failing and not helping Luka enough? Isn't it way to early to make that call?
For myself, I'll give this more time before calling it a failure.
Look, we should discuss areas where Luka needs to improve (settling for late game 3s and not getting distracted by refs, for example), and kudos to hf for that, but I don't currently see a reason to believe that Luka and Rick aren't working to make Luka better.
(01-15-2020, 08:26 AM)hakeemfan Wrote: [ -> ]Selfish, inefficient players have never won anything as a lead dog in their lives.
Kobe says hi.
(01-15-2020, 09:31 AM)hakeemfan Wrote: [ -> ]The historically most efficient offense part is fool’s gold. Others have mentioned certain things on how this efficiency is measured. Plus we have seen how they fare against elite teams or even against average teams when the game is close and they don’t seem to have any go to plays at all in the half court.
Before the season, I doubted this team is good enough to make playoffs. Now they are firmly in playoff position and play beautiful basketball for most of the time. They were barely outplayed in the 40 games (1 LAC game, 1 LAL game, perhaps 1 Bos game). On the other hand they whooped ass of a lot of very good teams like Houston, LAL once, Philly twice. All in all, I am much surprised how good this team is doing. I expected them to struggle way more so I am generally satisfied with the result. Of course they have things they need to work on, but less things
than I thought.
If you expected that they were a contending team before the season, than I can understand your criticism. I didn't, neither did the good run really make me think they are contenders. Although, to be honest, I started dreaming.
Claims how we, the casual observers, know better than the coach, team and best player of overperforming team are a bit far reaching for me. I have no doubt that RC, Luka and everyone else involved are not self centric idiots who don't see the mistakes they are making in endless hours of watching and analysing the games they played. It is very easy to be smart after all the facts are known - after you see what is working and what not. Completely different than make a decision and then live with the consequence. That is why myself, as a rule, never criticize in game coach decisions. They are made in stress situations with limited time and they are all risky. And whatever a coach/player does and it doesn't work, there will always be a smart ass claiming how stupid the coach was to put a player X in the game. Same person will be totally quiet when player X wins a game.
One other thing. Coaching principle is completely different comparing Europe and USA. In Europe it is very common that coach yells at his players through most of the game, react for every bad play and so on. This is probably comming from the importance of every game played (fewer games played in single competition - each can be very important).
NBA coaching style is completely different as coaches (publicly) act as 100 % gentlemen, almost never raise their voice on their players and use very limited ingame deviations from general plan. That may be related to much longer season where individual regular season games are more used as a training/teaching tool and only trends matter as assesment of the result. Creating stressfull situations even more stressful might wear out players before they reach the playoffs.
Not to mention the overreactions of media on every raised voice or gesture in stresfull situations, that are very normal human reactions and usually have no consequnces once the stressful situation is over.
(12-29-2019, 02:49 PM)ItsGoTime Wrote: [ -> ] (12-16-2019, 02:47 AM)ItsGoTime Wrote: [ -> ] (12-09-2019, 09:48 PM)ItsGoTime Wrote: [ -> ] (11-30-2019, 11:14 AM)ItsGoTime Wrote: [ -> ]Before the Suns Game Luka was at 2.05 A:TO ratio.
With that game he is now at a 2.14 ratio.
He is currently #76 in the NBA in this stat.
Now at 2.01. Dropped to #91.
2.04 up to #87
2.13 up to #73
2.04 down to #87
(01-15-2020, 10:20 AM)fifteenth Wrote: [ -> ]This conversation is a little too black and white for my taste. Luka needs to get better and Rick needs to help him, yes.
But hf, I don't see how you paint Luka's play as hero ball. I don't like some of his late game 3s, but he generally takes what the game gives him.
And you can't accurately describe his game by pointing at 3s you don't like. The greater (quantity) portion of his offenses centers around probing the interior of the defense.
And letting the refs take him off his game or failing to get back on D is something he has to correct for sure, but do you know that he's not working on it.
And RC is failing and not helping Luka enough? Isn't it way to early to make that call?
For myself, I'll give this more time before calling it a failure.
Look, we should discuss areas where Luka needs to improve (settling for late game 3s and not getting distracted by refs, for example), and kudos to hf for that, but I don't currently see a reason to believe that Luka and Rick aren't working to make Luka better.
Fair enough. I will wait and see. Not liking what I have seen so far.
(01-15-2020, 10:43 AM)mavsluvr Wrote: [ -> ] (01-15-2020, 08:26 AM)hakeemfan Wrote: [ -> ]Selfish, inefficient players have never won anything as a lead dog in their lives.
Kobe says hi.
So you are agreeing Luka is selfish and inefficient? Just that it might not stop him from a title? Let’s get the next Shaq, Pau, drug free Odom too while we are going there.
(01-15-2020, 01:47 PM)hakeemfan Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:Quote:Selfish, inefficient players have never won anything as a lead dog in their lives.
Kobe says hi.
So you are agreeing Luka is selfish and inefficient? Just that it might not stop him from a title? Let’s get the next Shaq, Pau, drug free Odom too while we are going there
Just yanking your chain a little, hakeem. Not really intended as a serious comment about Luka. (If you don't like my remark, you're supposed to make some riposte that cuts me off at the knees with rapier-like wit. Something that leaves everyone smiling.)
Omahen. Not sure if this reply will be collated with my others. I am not asking RC to rant and scream. I don’t like coaches like that. Just use the bench liberally and in a calm manner if the player is continuously making the same mistakes or playing lazy defense. Else it is enabling.
As I said previously many here were talking about all the bad and selfish habits of US teens due to AAU play and how Luka was different because Euroleague taught a team style. So let us be fair and call out Luka too when he goes through long stretches of doing that. For those pointing to Luka’sassists to counter, Westbrook averaged a triple double and no one considers him a team first player. Add the totally lackadaisical effort on defense too.
Being young is not an excuse. He has all the tools. Just need to be molded the right way before it is too late. I want him to be a Jokic or a Bron. Not a Harden or a RW. I know many teams would love to have a RW or a Harden but there is a ceiling with those types.
(01-15-2020, 01:57 PM)hakeemfan Wrote: [ -> ]Mavsluvr. ?. My bad
No worries. I probably shouldn't inject weak attempts at humor into serious threads. You raise some good points.
(01-15-2020, 01:57 PM)hakeemfan Wrote: [ -> ]I want him to be a Jokic or a Bron. Not a Harden or a RW. I know many teams would love to have a RW or a Harden but there is a ceiling with those types.
me too