An NBA star who looks like he has been taken over for the Slovenian national team
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Luka Dončić’s fitness was a constant last season. He’s only been out of season for a few weeks, but his body already looks different.
Luka Dončić finished his season incredibly strong – averaging 32.0 points, 9.2 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 1.6 steals in the Western Conference final defeat against the Golden State Warriors. He was one of the most productive players even in the regular season, but it definitely started hard.
By the end of November, however, he averaged just 25.5 points per game and shot 43.9 percent off the field, 34.1 percent off the bow and 65.2 percent from the free throw line. In early December, he even admitted that his condition was a problem (according to ESPN):
“I know I have to do better. I had a long summer. I had the Olympics, you took a three week break and I relaxed a little. Maybe too much. I just have to get back on track.”
According to ESPN, for the second consecutive season, he signed up for a training camp at around £ 260, well above his stated weight of 230.
It’s only been a few weeks since the Mavericks dropped out of the playoffs, but last week in the game for the Slovenian team he already looked much slimmer.
Will Luka Dončić be in better shape to start next season?
It’s nice to see that Luke looks slim and maybe with a little extra definition on those hands. But in fact, he hasn’t stopped playing basketball for 10 months, if he went straight from the NBA playoffs to training with the Slovenian team for the summer competition. As he said in those December comments for ESPN, last season’s problems arose in a stalemate between the end of an international competition and the start of NBA league training.
Doncic looks like he is in great shape at the moment. The trick will be to rest your body for a few weeks in September without losing too much of the fitness it has gained in the last few months.