MIKE SHEDD GIVES COACHING PERSPECTIVE ON MAVS

[hakeemfaan]

hakeem, I have always admired you and enjoyed your posts, and have never meant to try to tear you down. I am genuinely sorry that you think I would even want to do that, if you do. 

My position is that Luka should attend to his conditioning. Another of my positions, which I think is consistent with the first, is that I am not sure Luka attending to his conditioning is going to change much of anything with respect to the Mavs' disappointment of a season. Maybe it will. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Of course, he should do it, anyway -- it's the right thing to do for a multitude of reasons. 

I believe that there is another widely held point of view that Luka's teammates are performing worse than expected, at least partly because of Luka's conditioning. That is the reason for addressing the subjects together. It is my hypothesis that Luka's teammates may not be stepping up as well as we would like, primarily because they have reached their ceilings, and not primarily because Luka is overweight. But I could be wrong, and only time will tell.  

At any rate, I think I am getting my points across much more poorly than I intended, if you think I was trying to belittle you. I feel like maybe I should just give this topic a rest for a while. There was surely no offense intended, and I hope to engage in further discussions with you in the future. Carry on!

As I wrote before, Luka’s conditioning issue has taken a life of its own and got more attention than some other things regarding his game 

Now the thing is we don’t know how much conditioning is a factor on his lack of effort on defense but I have brought up conditioning only because it is a minimum expectation from professional athletes that I have. I will continue to stand by that. If he played a more rigorous schedule in the off season then he should be in shape. 

However I have bigger issues with his game that I have whined about for the last few years. Mainly he wants to play on the ball. If he passes it and two passes go by without him getting it back, you can see him demanding it. Stop over dribbling and taking shots that leave teammates frozen, improving his FT %,  getting back on defense consistently than whining to the refs, and at least making a honest attempt on defense are all things that are much bigger issues I have with his game. 

Now you wrote previously that if he is that bad let us just trade him. He is a 6’8” guy who has superior handles, superior vision and passing skills, and can genuinely play inside or outside. He is a legit franchise changer. I would be thrilled if he plays his whole career here. My point is he can be a Jokic or a Westbrook. It is his choice. Jokic, due to Denver injuries, is currently playing with a surrounding cast that might be worse than Luka’s. He scores too and the ball passes through him a lot, but you watch those games and never feel like he is dominating the ball. He reads defenses and almost every time makes the right play, be it giving the ball up and just being a decoy or scoring if he sees defenses slacking off him due to his passing. I rarely see him hoisting a bad shot. Same with LeBron over the years. Who dominates the ball more than him?  Forget Kyrie or Wade. Even when he had an average cast in his early Cleveland years, you never felt the ball was sticking in his hands. Even though he had some great scoring runs and games too.  So even the excuse that no one else on this team can handle the ball and hence Luka has to hog the ball seems hollow.  

That is where I want Luka to be offensively. Like a Jokic or a Bron. I don’t expect a 22 year old Luka to be what a 27 year old Luka might be. However on some of these flaws I want to see improvement. This is year 4 and many of the things I have mentioned seem to be the same.  At least he can start with taking fewer one possession long shots and getting back on defense.