Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[audiosway]

I 100% agree. My favorite Luka was the one from the bubble, and the year after, when he was light and quick enough to get by people without a screen. This was working iNSANELY well in Carlisle's offense, which pulled defenders out of the paint, and made so many Mavs drivers seem gifted. 

The bigger/slower Luka got, the more we started hearing about how he HAD to have a vertical spacer, to the point where that's ALL the offense became. No variety, clogged lane on every play. To Luka's credit, he developed a LETHAL set of mid-range 1-on-1 counters, but I had become worried that our 25 year old star had become the 32 year old, future version of himself much earlier than ideal. It had almost gotten to the point where if his three wasn't falling he was going to hurt the offense more than help for long stretches. If you believe he was a year away from beginning to take conditioning, flexibility and diet seriously, then you were probably assuming he'd get that first step back at some point. But, if he's already 32 year old Luka (at 25) for good...what's he going to look like at 28?

I was concerned about that too. I still keep going back to something Luka said at the Lakers presser. "I haven't been thinking about basketball much lately". That reminds me of all of the talk of Jokic would be just fine going back to his horse ranch. Granted Jokic did finally get himself in shape to play.

Not to say that Luka doesn't care about basketball. He obviously does. But, you have to wonder "did Dallas know something we don't". You can be a dog on the court and not have the drive get better every day by any means necessary. Both things can be true.