Skinny Luka Doncic is on REVENGE TOUR after “embarrassing” 2025 Lakers season with LeBron James

Skinny Luka Doncic is on REVENGE TOUR after “embarrassing” 2025 Lakers season with LeBron James

All right, number two, Luca Donuch. Let’s start by going over his last season, and then we’ll talk about what Luca is as a basketball player at this point and what I expect from him this coming season. Luca followed up his unbelievable breakout season in 2024 with the most embarrassing season of his career. There’s no way to describe it other than to use the word embarrassing. Now, we can all agree that Nico Harrison trading Luca Donuch was the dumbest trade in the history of sports. But even in that context, it’s worth mentioning that Nico had a reason. It wasn’t nearly enough of a reason to justify the trade, but the reason was there. Luca came into camp fat. He got hurt. He came back fatter. Got hurt again. Then he got traded. Came back to the Lakers the fattest I’ve ever seen him. And then he got flatly outplayed by Anthony Edwards in the first round as Ant continually came on strong in fourth quarters while Luca looked exhausted at the end of every game because he wasn’t in nearly as good a shape and he put together the worst defensive series of his career. Somehow eclipsing a pretty rough defensive series in the 2024 finals. I’m being very blunt here on purpose. I obviously hold Luca in very high esteem as a basketball player. He’s number two on my list for the second year in a row. That means I hold him to a very high standard. And his last season was an embarrassing step backwards for a player that had had one of the most impressive starts to a career in the history of the NBA. It was embarrassing. There’s no way around it. But let’s go through the numbers from last year first and then we’ll start looking forward. Luca played in 50 total games spanning his time with the Mavs and the Lakers. 28 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists. 45% from the field, 37% from the line, or excuse me, from three, 78% from the line. That amounted to 54% effective field goal percentage, 59% true shooting, 2.2 stocks per game, fueled by a career-high 1.8 steals per game. As we talked about in the first segment today, Luca is a good defensive playmaker off the ball, and he could play passing lanes and sniff out actions there and blow him up. So, obviously a testament to how amazing Luca is. that 288 and8 on 59% true shooting is an embarrassing step backwards for him. But literally just one year prior he played in 20 more games averaged 349 and 10 on 62% true shooting. That’s what Luca is capable of. That’s the standard. That’s closer to what I expect from Luca moving forward. Again, like we talked about earlier, maybe not the same points per game alongside LeBron James and Austin Reeves, but that’s the standard. Lucas play type data last year, good, not great by his standards. In Dallas, 1.11 points per possession in pick and roll, including passes. That’s obviously very good. 0.89 points per possession including passes in one-on- ones, which is obviously not great. In Los Angeles, was a little more balanced. 1.08 points per possession in pick and roll. Not quite as good as he was in Dallas, but still above average. 1.04 points per possession in his one-on- ons, which was better than Dallas, but still not great. So, across the board last year as a shot creator, just not a great year for him by his standards. The strangest thing for Luca last year was his dip in short- range scoring, which again has been his one of his biggest strengths as an NBA player. And it happened like right when he went to LA. In Dallas last year, he shot 54% on jumpers inside of 17 feet and 46% on floaters. More in line with what his recent career performance is. But in Los Angeles, he dropped to just 37% on jump shots inside of 17 ft and just 36% on floaters. He’s been a little better with Slovenia this summer. 7 for 16 on twos inside of 17 ft. That’s 44%. Um, I think he’s I think he’s only taken like two floaters, but this is the big category I have my eye on heading into this coming season. I really want to see Luca get back to being that high volume, high efficiency, short range scorer that he was before joining the Lakers. But let’s look forward and let’s talk about what I expect from Luca this coming season. Predictably, the immense criticism that Luca has received over the last year has motivated him into getting into the best shape he’s been in at this phase in his career. I’ve seen two very important things from Luca so far in Euro Basket. One, he’s far more explosive athletically. His first step is quicker. He’s changing directions more smoothly. I’m seeing explosiveness in transition. And I was watching a clip of him in a coast to coast drive against Israel the other day where he just took the ball, exploded forward in the open court, powered through a dude with his left shoulder, and finished with his right hand at the basket. That’s not anything I saw out of him last year. He’s got side to side pop on like his spins and his euros that wasn’t there last year. He’s simply far more athletic than he was last year. But the second piece of it is that he’s retained most of his strength. I was worried about this when I heard about him losing weight. Strength is such a huge part of Luca’s game, which we’re about to talk about more in a little bit uh here in just a second. You can tell that through this process, he has stayed dedicated in the weight room. And I’m seeing a lot of power on his drives and on his post ups, on his bumps, when he’s handling ball pressure and box outs. I just think Luca looks great physically and I think we’re going to get the best season of his career from him this year on both ends of the floor. So, what does that look like? Luca’s approach to offense is very different than Shayes in that it relies heavily on his ability to generate dribble penetration through strength rather than speed and finesse. To be clear, Luca has excellent fundamentals as we’ve discussed often on the show. He sells his fakes well. I think he’s a great ball handler for young players to watch because it’s all eyes and like selling every part of his uh move with every part of his body before he changes direction. He’s very good at getting that first tiny bit of an angle on even the elite defenders in the NBA. From there though, that’s where the difference is. It’s about strength. He gets you on that shoulder. He gets you on his back and he uses his size and strength to rumble downhill to whatever spot he wants on the floor. That’s what gives him the ability to be so effective in pick and roll and in his one-on- ones. In pick and roll, he sets his man up for screen, gets him trapped on his backside, and slowly works his way downhill. It’s a big part of why I’m not as worried about the screening in the Eightton partnership. remains to be seen, but Luca’s really gifted at getting dribble penetration even without necessarily needing a screen because of his strength. But once he gets you downhill, he’s just waiting for the defense to react, right? Big man steps up, low man doesn’t. He’s hitting the big either with a bounce pass or he’s got unbelievable touch on lobs. He’s probably the best lob thrower in the NBA right now, right? Low man steps over, he can whip crosscourt passes, left hand, right hand to either corner easily, right? He beats low man help extremely well. You stay back, he’s got the short range shot making, the little short jumpers off the bump or little floaters, things along that those lines. You die on the screen, he can hit the pull-up three. He is, in my opinion, the best pick and roll passer in the NBA. I think Joic is a better overall passer, but strictly within on ball pick and roll play, I think Luca’s passing ability is transcended. I think he’s the best at it. In postup situations, he’s also good. He can eat up double teams. We I saw a lot of examples of that uh generating those threes for PJ Washington in the Oklahoma City series last year. He can look defenders off with his eyes. He is a profoundly good playmaker and advantage creator on the offensive end out of every single type of action. The key is going to be regaining his shotmaking. The playmaking is S tier. I talked about the the foul grifting earlier with Shay. Luca’s the exact same. He’s got all the low gathers and pump fakes, weird shot angles, weird driving angles, the flops, the yelling. He’s got it all right. But the piece in the middle that he’s got to get back is that shotmaking piece. If he can regain that shotmaking in 2024, he was 37% on pull-up threes. That’s a good number. We talked about the short range scoring. He was well over 50% on floers and jumpers inside of 17 ft. If he can get all that back, that’s what ties everything together and puts Luca in that position. And that is a big part of as of why why I am projecting him to be the second best player in the league this coming season. This is not going to be the fat Luca, out of shape Luca that we got last year. This is an inshape, strong and motivated Luca that should look like a better version of what we saw in 2024. The guy who dragged the the Dallas Mavericks all the way to the NBA finals. To put it very simply, even though his point per game averages won’t look like they did in Dallas because of how different the Lakers roster is, I expect this will be the best offensive season of Luca’s career. I expect a resurgence in mobility. I expect a resurgent a resurgence in shot making. I expect him to be one of the top tier shot creators in the league. Another create uh like kind of like specific area where I expect Luca to improve this year is at the end of games. Luca had some issues fatiguing last year in the playoffs this last year. He was just 6 for 20 in fourth quarters and was pretty badly outplayed by Anthony Edwards in those spots. I think we’ll see Luca do a better job of maintaining his level of impact later into games this season. But lastly, we have to talk about the defensive end. The conversation around Luca as a defender has been fascinating over the last couple of years because it’s complicated. For starters, he’s an excellent defensive rebounder. Closing out defensive possessions is a key part of defense. He’s also a good defensive playmaker off the ball, as we discussed earlier. Those are useful traits that help a defense, but he just has this gaping situational weakness with handling dribble penetration. He gets picked on by quicker perimeter players and he can give up super easy straight line drives. And when you get compromised that badly at the point of attack, it puts you in these really tough rotation situations. They can be really hard to recover from. It played a big role in their losses to Boston and Minnesota. The question is, what does Luca have to get to? What does he have to become in order to rectify that issue? He doesn’t need to become prime Patrick Beverly or DaVon Mitchell. He doesn’t need like dribble penetration is a part of basketball. Every player is capable of giving up drives from time to time. Even the best defenders in the league. Luca just has to find a way to make it way harder than it has been. More cut offs, more flattened drives, fewer straight line drives. We talk about it all the time. If you flatten out a drive, meaning like, okay, you got past me, but you had to make multiple counter moves, and instead of going directly towards the rim, it’s kind of frayed off to the side a little bit. You do that, it makes it much easier for the defense around you to rotate and help and recover. He doesn’t need to become an all-world defensive player. He just simply needs to be able to slide his feet and anticipate better to the point where he can flatten out more of those drives. Improved quickness and improved conditioning should help him in that department. This is the weakness that Luca has to address. And I do believe that this season we will get his best performance in that particular facet of defense. So to wrap everything up, I have Luke at number two because despite his embarrassing previous season, I expect him to return to the level he was at the at the season before, which was the only player in the league other than Jokic to be both a transcendently great scorer and a transcendently great playmaker. It makes him the second best offensive engine currently on the planet playing basketball. I also think his improved conditioning will manifest with the best defensive season of his career and better performance at the end of games where he has struggled with fatigue in the past. And that’s why I have Luca at number two this season. All right guys, that’s all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We will be back on Friday with number one Nicole Jokic as well as our mailbag. I will see you guys then.

Jason explains why even after an embarrassing season last year for Luka Doncic, the Los Angeles Lakers star comes in at No. 2 on his player rankings list. He explains why he expects a bounce-back season, why the partnership with LeBron James can flourish, and why he’s ahead of OKC Thunder MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

All lines provided by @hardrockbet

Follow Jason Timpf on social:
Tweets by _JasonLT
https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/

Follow us on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/hoopstonight/
https://x.com/hoopstonite
https://www.facebook.com/hoopstonight/

@hoopstonightjasontimpf

Learn more about the Volume:
https://www.thevolume.com

#nba #nbaplayoffs #nbafinals #nbahighlights #nbabasketball #basketball #sports #reaction #rank #Ranked #ranking #luka #lukadoncic #lakers #losangeleslakers #lebron #lebronjames #okcthunder #shaigilgeousalexander #sga