Yeah I know this sub is gonna downvote me into the abyss. But I just notice a ton of folks in this sub keep babying Luka. I saw the thread where Russ scored on him 4 straight possessions and I know he isn’t the world’s greatest defender and I won’t expect him to become an All-NBA level defender, but the amount of of bail y’all kep shooting to him is hilarious.
All this “he’s tired blame Kidd!” “It’s all on the coach for playing him so much”. First of all every Mavs fan wants Luka to lead us to the promised land. And guess what’s required for that. A deep playoff run where a star like Luka is going to exceed 40+ minutes multiple games and fans are saying he’s too tired in a November regular season game (where he’s 24 years old btw, not like he’s 33). As someone mentioned in this sub slow white guys like Dirk and Jokic worked on their conditioning to be at their best and obviously they also weren’t amazing defenders but at least Dirk was consistent and we never had to worry about him not putting in his best effort.
imo we’re approaching the point within the next year or two where this is might end up just being who he is as a player/person. this is around the time in their career/age that Giannis and Jokic took the next leap into winning MVPs, being the clear-cut top 2 players in the league, and leading their teams to a ring. Luka obviously has the talent as he’s been top 5 for a while now and he’s not 25 but he’s not the new kid on the block anymore
i know a lot of it is the construction of the team but you would be delusional to not think Luka has a lot to work on before he can reach that top top tier