In the NBA Finals are the Dallas Mavericks. Something that seemed unthinkable a year ago. By then, Luka Dončić was in a bad way and Dallas had missed the playoffs. He appeared to be under stress, having sustained an injury, and had lost interest in basketball early in the season. Luka Dončić was not the Luka we knew and loved. Had he given up? Was he prepared to part from Dallas?
Even for the most ardent supporters and Luka believers, what came next was unexpected. He was spotted working out frequently during the ensuing months. Over the summer, more than usual. As I’ve mentioned several times, he even invited him on vacation and exchanged photos with his personal trainer.
The reason I keep mentioning this is because it seems like a turning point. Like he was taking a step up, making an active decision to take his health and conditioning more seriously to prepare for the next season.
And, as it turned out, a turning point it was.
Sometimes, when you do a little to optimize and improve your life and career the effects are multiplied. Like rings in the water, one positive action affecting the next.
It’s not really possible to overstate the importance of this decision for the season that followed. Working on injury prevention, conditioning and strength all season, starting good habits that he kept (and also keeping his trainer around) all year has helped him stay relatively healthy through a long season. If you want to make a deep playoff run, this stuff is crucial.
Improved conditioning during the season also translates into increased energy in the final stretch. What occurs in a game when your energy level increases? You can exert extra effort from both sides.
And Luka has been doing that, wow. They’ve been locked in with Kyrie, obviously providing offensive support for one another as well, which makes it simpler to contribute more on the other end.
However, it doesn’t end there. Maintaining a higher and more consistent level of health allows you to better control one of the most important factors in winning: your mental toughness.
Thus, we observed Luka Dončić generally being much less critical of the referees; he was able to maintain a much more upbeat attitude and play with his well-known enthusiasm. More air will help your shot too, as we witnessed with Luka throughout the season, especially when it counted. Like in the opening quarter of Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals over the Timberwolves, when Luka appeared superhuman.
After a challenging season, he took himself seriously and assumed responsibility for his own work. The results of that are being felt in these playoffs.
With the arrival of Kyrie Irving, Luka also looked to have increased his level of trust in his teammates. It is unsustainable for a team to succeed if just a select few or one player can be relied upon to produce crucial plays. Although there is much to discuss regarding roster construction, it is still a challenging circumstance that has the potential to spiral out of control.
Luka became more confident in his teammates’ ability to take and make those shots when Kyrie joined the squad. However, that also appears to have been positively impacted by his first summer as Slovenia’s national team captain.
Here, we witnessed Luka Dončić make a few crucial moves to focus on leading the team rather than venting his own anger on the court. I wrote this analysis and preview following the World Cup last summer, speculating on what to anticipate from Luka Dončić’s leadership this season:
He set an example for his colleagues with his positive body language and constant conversations with the referees, but he also seemed to pick his battles better and even waited for breaks to speak with them.
He did not remain back to argue over bad rulings against Australia, who was regarded as a top three favorite with a few NBA players; instead, he let his teammates play four-on-five defense. He didn’t pout or display unfavorable body language nearly as often as he has in the past.
This was not the case for the following loss against Canada, however, but as I wrote at the time: “Luka took a step back in that final game. But before that, during the summer and in the previous games, he had taken two steps forward. Growth is not linear.”
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