The workout consists of a series of circuits, each set up to include an on-court challenge (like those resistance band lay-ups) and an upper-body and lower-body exercise. The facility, which is located in the town where Don\u010di\u0107 has vacationed every summer since he was a teen, didn\u2019t have weights until earlier this month when he had dumbbells, barbells, weight plates, and med balls trucked in. Now, Don\u010di\u0107 can do everything from trap-bar deadlifts to landmine overhead presses\u2014and he works through sprints and jumps on an outdoor track too. <\/p>\n
He moves swiftly from circuit to circuit, banging out hip stretches one moment, working through renegade rows the next. It\u2019s a session with barely any breathers, which is fine. This version of Don\u010di\u0107 doesn\u2019t need them. This Luka is\u2026different.
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![\"luka](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/26500ea6-79cb-4672-a3ea-7dfa6671bac6-68812934816e4.jpg\" "\\"luka")
Boogie<\/p>\n
Exercises like the deadlift give Don\u010di\u0107 extra glute strength to accelerate rapidly but also stop instantly on the court.<\/p>\n
You see it in the way his Jordan Brand jersey hangs loose, and in the new hints of definition on his arms. You see it in the complete absence of fatigue he shows when going from heavy Romanian deadlifts to dumbbell bench presses to lateral bounds\u2014one right after the other. And you see it in the way he smiles when he admits that he\u2019s noticed his sleek silhouette in the mirror. He subtly nods to his reshaped delts during our Zoom interview. And as he splays out his long-limbed physique on the bleachers in the gym, he seems relaxed, calmly making eye contact. His arms look longer today than usual, perhaps because he\u2019s just so downright skinny, a fact which now (finally!) he sheepishly acknowledges. \u201cJust visually, I would say my whole body looks better,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
And yes, somehow, in the world of sports, the way you look matters\u2014even though it shouldn\u2019t. From Nikola Joki\u0107 to Patrick Mahomes to Shaq, decades before all of them, we\u2019ve seen loads of evidence that athletic dominance comes in all shapes and sizes. But ask anyone to pick out an athlete in a crowd, and they\u2019ll almost always point to the dude with LeBron-size arms and Ronaldo-level abs. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust VISUALLY,<\/a> I would say my whole BODY<\/a> looks BETTER.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u010di\u0107, still just 26 years old, is unquestionably a topflight athlete (more on that soon). But he\u2019s never quite looked the Greek god part. And somehow, that shortcoming too often has undercut his five All-NBA first team nods and his 82 career triple-doubles (already seventh all-time). Last August, critics blasted him for looking \u201cfat\u201d and \u201cout of shape\u201d during a charity game. The moment the Mavs traded him to the Lakers in February, rumors leaked that Dallas didn\u2019t want to deal with his love of beer and hookah. Even this summer, the NBA web has chattered that Don\u010di\u0107 is on Ozempic.<\/p>\n What the Luka haters have never seen is this: Don\u010di\u0107 slogging through two-a-days<\/a> in Croatia while sticking to a gluten-free, low-sugar diet<\/a> that includes at least 250 grams of protein and one almond milk\u2013fueled shake a day. They never knew that Don\u010di\u0107 had quietly constructed a fitness team several years ago to help enhance his (very dangerous) natural gifts. And they never realized how much he committed to training and diet this summer.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing too: Even if you thought Luka Don\u010di\u0107 had a dadbod, he was already a top-five NBA player. And after pushing hard this offseason, he can\u2019t help but wonder how high he\u2019ll level up. \u201cIf I stop now,\u201d Don\u010di\u0107 says of his effort to rebuild his body, \u201cit was all for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n SEVERAL WEEKS BEFORE THIS private workout in Croatia, Luka Don\u010di\u0107 was in Madrid, standing in a lab on a force plate, a device that measures the amount of energy an athlete can drive into the ground. Typically, sports scientists use force plates to measure how quickly an athlete can jump and land. But Ma\u010dek and Javier Barrio, Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s physiotherapist, were watching for something else: Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s balance. <\/p>\n It was mid-May, and Don\u010di\u0107 was midway through a battery of tests designed to assess his current fitness level. Over the course of three days, he gave blood, urine, and stool samples, took a series of MRIs and ultrasounds, and worked through more physical tests. Those tests involved force plate work that recorded how his feet applied pressure into the ground. Very often, slow-motion cameras were recording his movement. All this data informed how he trained throughout the rest of the summer. <\/p>\n All Don\u010di\u0107 wanted to do after this season ended was train, and he made that clear to his manager, Lara Beth Seager, on May 1, one day after the Lakers were ousted from the first round of the NBA playoffs. The loss was the nadir of Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s worst NBA season. For all the criticism of Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s body, until this past season, nobody could diss his body of work: He\u2019d never played fewer than 60 games in a season, and just a year earlier, he\u2019d powered the Mavs to the NBA Finals. No such luck in 2024. A calf injury knocked him out for all of January. Then Dallas sent him packing. Then came the 4-1 playoff series decimation at the hands of the Timberwolves. One day after that loss, Don\u010di\u0107 texted Seager to start his offseason training program ASAP. \u201cSo every summer I try my best to work on different things,” he says. “Obviously, I’m very competitive. This summer was just a little bit different, you know. It kind of motivated me to be even better.\u201d<\/p>\n Luka Don\u010di\u0107 with trainer with An\u017ee Ma\u010dek in Croatia, July 17, 2025. His workouts often feature supersets that include an upper-body exercise, a lower-body move, and a basketball-specific drill.<\/p>\n The early postseason exit gave Don\u010di\u0107 more than motivation. It granted him a full four months of rest. That\u2019s allowed him to work in lockstep with what he calls Team Luka, a trio of wellness specialists\u2014Barrio, Ma\u010dek, and nutritionist Lucia Almendros\u2014who he hired back in 2023, after the Mavs had missed the playoffs. Back then, he was a 24-year-old hunting for ways to take his game to the next level. <\/p>\n At the start of his NBA career, Don\u010di\u0107 mostly received advice from Mavs trainers and nutritionists. During the offseasons, when he returned to Europe, the limited guidance left him flailing. And during the season, the vicious NBA travel schedules gave him little time to clean up his diet. \u201cEspecially in the NBA, you travel almost all the time,” he says. “You’re never home. And for me, you know, after the season, going back home, it’s a big thing, you know. I see my friends, my family, I see everybody. So it’s not easy for sure.”<\/p>\n He goes on. \u201cWhen I came to the NBA, I was 18,\u201d he says. \u201cHonestly, I didn’t know what to expect those first four or five years. Then I said, \u2018I need to do this.\u2019\u201d \u201cWhen I came to the NBA,<\/a> I was 18.<\/a> Honestly, I didn\u2019t know WHAT TO EXPECT<\/a> those first four or five years.\u201d<\/p>\n In an instant, so many of Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s past conditioning struggles start to make sense. On the court, he was an immediate fit in the NBA system; off it, he struggled to navigate NBA life. But since 2023, when Team Luka entered the picture, he has gradually gained stability. And this summer, he and the team have found another gear. Since June, Don\u010di\u0107 has gone on an intermittent fasting plan designed to limit inflammation and help his body recover better. Six days a week, he chokes down two high-protein meals and one protein shake\u2014and he doesn\u2019t have that first meal until he\u2019s crushed his 90-minute morning workout. <\/p>\n In the gym, his team has focused on footwork and deceleration. Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s on-court superpower has never been raw speed; don\u2019t expect to see him take on IShowspeed on Instagram anytime soon. But few athletes can change speeds like Luka, who can charge forward on a drive, only to stop abruptly while his defender is still flailing and settle in for an easy jumper. This requires Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s muscles to swiftly contract and decelerate his body, creating what\u2019s known as eccentric force. Don\u010di\u0107 working on his hops and speed.<\/p>\n \u201cHis eccentric force is very good,\u201d Barrio says of Don\u010di\u0107. \u201cAnd his strength is off the charts, really; he has really incredibly strong legs. Also, his center of gravity is really very low. So when he\u2019s in his position, when he gets low in his stance, it\u2019s very difficult to move him, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n Such athletic gifts aren\u2019t as immediately evident as a highlight-reel dunk from Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, or a god-level chasedown block from LeBron. Eccentric force doesn\u2019t fill out a tank top or show up on a vertical-jump test. But it\u2019s an unheralded key to the game. Don\u010di\u0107 has always valued such stealthy abilities. \u201cNot everything is jumping high,\u201d he says. \u201cI think I\u2019m very athletic in other stuff. Balancing, controlling my body, what I do when I stop, slowing down.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, and he can jump. Lost in the narratives about his weight and conditioning is the fact that, as a 19-year-old at the 2018 NBA Scouting Combine, Luka delivered a 42-inch vertical leap. After a full offseason with Team Luka, he\u2019s not sure that number is still the same. \u201cThis year, we didn\u2019t measure the jumping yet,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s a little bit higher.\u201d <\/p>\n THE HARDEST PART of Luka\u2019s offseason program came at the start. Shortly after the run of tests in May revealed that he was fully healthy, Barrio told him to quit playing basketball for a full month. \u201cJust to avoid the basketball court for one month in this offseason,\u201d Barrio says. \u201cWe let them put the ball away. We just were doing some other kinds of things.\u201d <\/p>\n The goal: For the first time in years, Don\u010di\u0107 would let his body recover completely from the constant pounding of basketball. The summer before, in 2024, Luka had found little time to breathe. Since the Mavs had made the NBA Finals, he\u2019d played into mid-June. Then, just weeks later, he suited up for the Slovenian national team in an Olympic qualifying tournament, eventually losing to Greece in the semis. <\/p>\n This summer, Team Luka\u2019s had three full months to rebuild Don\u010di\u0107. So they dared to eliminate court time\u2014and he disagreed at first. But he quickly filled the time with a weights routine that helped him build total-body strength. And he eventually found a distraction playing pickleball and padel (think: pickleball meets squash), sometimes against friends, sometimes with Barrio and Ma\u010dek. For Don\u010di\u0107, the new games were a blast from his childhood past, long before he fell in love with basketball. They challenged new muscles, relieving his knees, thanks to fewer vertical jumps, while strengthening adductors, glutes, and ankles with footwork. \u201cAt the beginning, it was hard,\u201d he says. \u201cI can\u2019t be without basketball. But when I was a little kid, I played a lot of sports.\u201d He channeled that era\u2014and maintained his competitive fire. \u201cThere were a lot of angry moments, too, when we would lose,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t lose much.\u201d <\/p>\n Boogie<\/p>\n Boogie<\/p>\n And he stayed hungry for hoops. By early June, Team Luka finally let Don\u010di\u0107 hit the court, in what was supposed to be a 45-minute shootaround. Don\u010di\u0107 nailed his first shot and worked out for an hour (before Barrio convinced him to rest). He immediately texted Seager three smiley faces. \u201cI think that this summer, he sees the difference,\u201d says Barrio, \u201cand he\u2019s really happy.\u201d <\/p>\n Don\u010di\u0107 has maintained that momentum throughout July as Ma\u010dek and Barrio have focused more on honing his superpower\u2014that ability to generate eccentric force from all angles. Ma\u010dek trains that with those resistance band drills, which constantly force the guard off-center, pushing his ankles, calves, and quads to slow his landings. The moves sharpen that trademark Luka elusiveness while also keeping his joints safe when he lands or steps at odd angles. <\/p>\n Other drills have challenged Luka\u2019s much-criticized conditioning. Midway through this session, Don\u010di\u0107 heads onto the track, where Ma\u010dek has set up a series of hurdles. Luka sprints through them repeatedly, going over them first, then around each obstacle. Then Ma\u010dek wraps a miniband around Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s ankles and pushes him to shuffle back and forth over a line, torching his glutes and firing up his lungs. <\/p>\n \u201cNot everything is JUMPING HIGH.<\/a> I think I\u2019m very athletic in other stuff. BALANCING,<\/a> CONTROLLING<\/a> my body, what I do when I STOP,<\/a> SLOWING DOWN.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n The well-rounded workout ends with Luka exactly where he always wants to be: taking jumpers on the court. He spends the last few minutes operating from the top of the key, catching the ball, dribbling and deking, then pulling up for jumpers, as if experimenting with his newer, slimmer body. He hasn\u2019t played five-on-five yet this summer, he says, so he won\u2019t know if he\u2019s actually more explosive on the court until late August, when he suits up for Slovenia in EuroBasket qualifying tourney play. But he does know that he hasn\u2019t felt this good in years. \u201cMy sleeping, my body, my everything\u2026I felt more rested,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n That\u2019s why he plans to keep evolving this offseason formula\u2014and maintain his renewed emphasis on fitness and conditioning. When he thinks back to his rookie year, he remembers seeing Mavs legend Dirk Nowitzki, then in his final season in Dallas, training hard. Don\u010di\u0107 also saw the same qualities from two players he\u2019s long admired, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, both of whom were known for their maniacal offseason training regimens\u2014and their dominance late into their careers. \u201cMJ and Kobe, you know, they really did a lot in their careers,\u201d he says. \u201cThey sacrificed a lot.\u201d Team Luka is expected to grow in the coming years, possibly adding a masseuse and a specialized shooting coach. <\/p>\n Luka\u2019s hope is that all this work will help him stay dominant for the next decade to come, critics of his conditioning and weight be damned. \u201cObviously, be the best that I can be, take care of myself,\u201d he says. \u201cThis year, with my team, I think we did a huge step. But this is just the start, you know. I need to keep going. Can\u2019t stop.\u201d Boogie<\/p>\n![\"breaker\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/breaker-02-667da7612fdd4.jpg\" "\\"breaker\\"")
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Boogie<\/p>\n
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Boogie<\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"luka](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/98665419-dad4-4708-9151-aa192d09830b-688127fbb4df1.jpg\" "\\"luka")
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