GAME 3 NBA FINALS: Boston Celtics (2-0) vs. Dallas Mavericks (0-2)

[KillerLeft]

No offense taken and hope the same the other way as well. 

I have seen the term tellutubby used in this thread.  

I absolutely agree with criticism about his griping. I absolutely agree he needs to get back on defense every single time.  However a lot of the criticism he gets about defense is unwarranted and is laziness from the national media and I see people here too now falling for that. 

Whether it was MJ or Kobe or Steph they always had another player who took on the other teams best guard. Yet Kobe and MJ are lauded as great defenders. Luka has one of the highest usage rates.  He is expending a lot of energy on offense. If he were consistently not in shape he would not be putting up the numbers he does. He would have been done a quarter into the season. People underestimate how much effort and energy just offense takes. 

People look at his build and assume he is not in shape. However as I said if that was true it’s impossible to have the offensive consistency he has with that usage rate. Jokic reduced to 250, didn’t like it and went back to 280. Luka is atrong as well. He bullies folks down low. Again this is not saying that there is not another level to where he can go but that is different from thinking he is shortchanging his potential right now by poor diet and habits off the court. I am not buying that narrative. If that were true then he is truly the best player to ever play the game that he can be so consistent offensively with such a high usage rate and have the energy to do it season after season while having terrible diet and sleep habits off the court.

It’s up to management and the coaches to find out how to reduce Luka’s overall usage rate. It is upto management to put a team out there that in key situations can hold their own when Luka goes to the bench. 

Once you do that then he will have more energy on defense.  He is never going to be a stud there but will do better once the team figured out how to reduce the current usage rate. 

To me the biggest isssue is with his maturity handling refs and staying focused on what he can control.

No offense taken on this end - discussing these things is what we’re here to do.

I agree with much of what you’ve written here. I agree that the complaining is by far the most black and white of the issues leveled against Luka. I agree that there are two sides to the other stuff, only…

With his conditioning, again, we’re talking about LEVELS. I actually think there’s correlation between his energy levels and his complaining/frustration. I agree his usage plays a part, too, but are we sure he’s not at least a little culpable with that being so high? Are we sure it’s Jason Kidd telling everyone that only Luka should ever have the ball? I feel like I have heard the opposite of that message delivered pretty consistently, and I don’t buy that there is no one else on the roster who is a competent basketball player.

And none of that is intended to put it all on Luka, either, because I do agree with your message. These aren’t binary issues.