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With all due respect to the husky/big boned people of the world, there are a lot of food cultures in the United States that can lead to obesity, which got me thinking... What would fans and media say about Luka if he were a white American basketball savant from some Louisiana parish where people loved chowing down on fried foods, exoticism like crawfish, frog legs and eating "gators," and washing it all down with copious amount American Pilsners. In other words, if his huskiness was the obvious result of American food culture, what would be the reaction?

Zion gets absolutely clowned for being overweight by the media. Zion is from the South Carolina and grew up in a well-known Coastal Carolina food culture in the Deep South. Zion has struggled with his weight, and the media absolutely bashes him non-stop. This is all no big secret. Yea, Zion has looked a little frumpy at times, but when he's on the court, Zion has looked explosive and athletic to me, his injuries not withstanding.

Is Luka just getting a pass here? He looked absolutely gassed last night and has on other nights during these playoffs. Conditioning for the regular season and for the playoffs are two different animals, especially if a team makes a deep run. The intensity of playoffs is way higher. You can't take plays off, and generally starting lineups play heavier minutes. Defensive assignments are much tougher because you are guarding the best players. The playoffs are more physical and more emotional. If there is a weakness in a lineup, matchups are exploited and out-of-shape/injured player will get hunted. Luka definitely got hunted in this series by Brown and Tatum. They exploited his lack of lateral quickness over and over. The blow-by percentage was way too high, and Boston got a lot of easy buckets because of Luka inability to front his man one-on-one. Other teams are going to take what Boston did and make it a blueprint for the future against Luka. There is no hiding for him now. We are going to see this again. I am sure Minnesota is thinking about how they can get more penetration on the perimeter. This is a serious issue for Dallas. Boston exposed them to an extent. Kyrie is a little guy, and Luka can't stay in front anybody and those are Dallas's two biggest minute sinks.

If he's just big boned, okay, then I guess there is nothing to be done. It's just very hard not to notice that Brown and Tatum have the physiques of professional basketball players, and that Luka does not -- to put it mildly. They ran circles around Luka the whole series in terms of their overall activity level on both ends, especially last night. I think that there is a legitimate question as to how much the result of this series depended on Luka's conditioning. We've seen pictures of Luka in shape, and in those photos his physique looked completely different. There are these famous off-season photos where Luka is obviously much skinnier and in way better shape. Skinny Luka is sort of a meme.

I guess my question is... what kind of food culture do they have in Dallas? Is it like San Antonio with the Churros?

I think it is blown way out of proportion....just saying

He is definitely overweight. Rookie Luka was thin, and he looked like this at 17.

https://youtu.be/rdvtPUpoIfM?si=GGbPWOlRJAyYKlyz

Now I also want to add this, the weight in some aspect helps him, in other aspects makes it more difficult for him, but he clearly doesn't put as much effort into his diet and body than he does into working on his skills, where he is very good and diligent. But the food and maybe the offseason booze is a weakness for him, clearly. He trains a lot, but he definitely eats a lot too.

Both. He can and should do better in terms of conditioning. It's part of his job. Harder to do when injured, I concede, but the general point stands that for the good of his career longevity and for extending his best years, he needs to be in better shape. So much talent. Has to maximize it, unleash it in full. Harder to do that when his body isn't in peak condition.

He's overweight, you can just look at his face and see the fat. All anyone needs to do is look at how he was built with Real Madrid, gaining weight is normal as you get older but he's gained fat instead of muscle.






Striations in his shoulder, visible vein in his bicep, he was probably 30lbs lighter at 18-19 than he is now. If he took his body more seriously he'd be better on defense, maybe losing in the finals will light that fire.

Zion gets clowned for his weight because his career has been (relatively) underwhelming so far and he’s hardly available to play. His weight is seen as a factor in that.

Luka gets some heat, but he’s consistently available and playing at a special level. Now that he’s getting on these bigger stages with some deep playoff runs he’ll be held to a higher standard though.

He's sloppy.

He's a full off-season of weight training from toning up those sloppy love handles. Eat right cut out the drinking and cigarettes and he's a full grown stud.

I only say cigarettes because judging his teeth shade that guy is clearly smoking tobacco or he's a heavy coffee drinker.

He's wider-bodied than most guys his height but not to an exceptional degree. He's just overweight. But the question is whether his game is better with the extra pounds on his frame. He uses it a lot to back down guys.

HW boxer Primo Carnera is an example of a big-boned human near Luka's height. He was 6'5" barefoot and weighed anywhere from 265 to 285 lean.

Luka should lose weight, his ideal being something around his weight in his second year in the league. He would be as strong, a step quicker, and more durable with less fat. He carry an enormous responsibility load in his team, to deliver he needs to be in top shape.

Now, about being gassed in this series... to my eye he looked hurt. In a lot of games he barely had any mobility, but he did well playing since the Mavs had 0% chances of wining any game without him.

He was not gassed, he was injured.

He's 6'7, 230. That's not really overweight. With his relatively slow speed anyway, the physicality probably helps anyway because of his weight.

hardenASG13 wrote:He's 6'7, 230. That's not really overweight. With his relatively slow speed anyway, the physicality probably helps anyway because of his weight.

I have a hard time believing he's only 230, he was listed at 228 during the draft and he's obviously much heavier.

FrodoBaggins wrote:He's wider-bodied than most guys his height but not to an exceptional degree. He's just overweight. But the question is whether his game is better with the extra pounds on his frame. He uses it a lot to back down guys.

HW boxer Primo Carnera is an example of a big-boned human near Luka's height. He was 6'5" barefoot and weighed anywhere from 265 to 285 lean.

Luka's arms look nothing like this. Yes there are strong men and powerlifters that carry extra fat so they can put on mass. Luke and those types are dissimilar.

Pretty natural for balkan. Reminds me of a serbian guy i work with, 205 tall, looks a bit untrained but strong af and used to be a body guard for oligarks in the 90s. Its just their natural looks. Reason he got gassdd were that he haf to handle everything when kyrie didnt show up. Im sure tatum would have looked gassed if brown white jrue kp were replaced with their bench too

NoDopeOnSundays wrote:

hardenASG13 wrote:He's 6'7, 230. That's not really overweight. With his relatively slow speed anyway, the physicality probably helps anyway because of his weight.

I have a hard time believing he's only 230, he was listed at 228 during the draft and he's obviously much heavier.

He's more the 240 for sure, closer to 250.
Luka's shoulders are massive, and has a big torso, he can lose few pounds for sure, but he's not guard sized, expecting him to guard on the perimeter is just nonsensical, remove his elite handle and he's a 4 on both ends.
When the Mavs lacked rim protection, he was targeted constantly because of there was no back line of defense (the infamous game 2 in 22 PO against the Suns), after getting rim protectors, it was no longer smart to target him, until they faced probabely the best 5-out team of all time, who were able to stretch the rim protector.

Hot Take: He's better overweight than when he's in shape.

His conditioning seemed to be fine this year. Maybe some of you didn't watch many Maverick games?

NoDopeOnSundays wrote:He's overweight, you can just look at his face and see the fat. All anyone needs to do is look at how he was built with Real Madrid, gaining weight is normal as you get older but he's gained fat instead of muscle.






Striations in his shoulder, visible vein in his bicep, he was probably 30lbs lighter at 18-19 than he is now. If he took his body more seriously he'd be better on defense, maybe losing in the finals will light that fire.

WTF!

I didn't even recognize him in this pic. Dude really let himself go. He looks nothing like that person.

as much as he's got the "chubby face syndrome" as in the weight gained seems to go there first.. he's 100%, easily identifiably overweight for an elite athlete. you can have the hundreds of millions of dollars and a great lifestyle that you enjoy but just don't complain if you finish your career with 0-1 NBA titles or flaming out early due to injuries or even worse conditioning.

Mostly big boned but getting in better shape would take him to the next level. He’ll never have the typical nba body ala Paul Pierce but he uses his frame to his advantage.

I think if someone saw him in person they’d be surprised how athletic he looks when not standing next to a Jaylen Brown.

He was slim agile and nimble when he played in Europe, watch some of his highlights. Much more foot speed and better equipped to play D.

Definitely one fat, flabby cheeseburger eating mf now.


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