Hall of Famer Reggie Miller calls out Luka’s defensive effort: “Look at Luka right here. It’s OK, Luka, to move your feet a little bit over and help out. What does he do? He just throws up his hands. This would be frustrating for me.”
I’m far more concerned with his reckless turnovers, especially the unforced ones. Throwing cross court passes while in the air is about the worst pass you can make in basketball, and he does it constantly.
Luka averages 4 turnovers a game for his whole career. This is kind of who he is
Luka “Tua Turndaballova” Doncic
Tua catching strays in the nba sub 🤣
I remember when Tanking for Tua was the thing to do to rebuild your franchise. Now they are tanking with Tua and he’s become a meme.
He had some good stretches before those first few concussions…
Wasn’t there a shoulder injury in there at some point, too?
Nothing notable for his shoulder.
Tua had an awful hip dislocation at Bama and he was never the same guy afterward.
The concussions have certainly impacted his decision making but the hip injury is what sapped his throwing power and mobility.
Yeah the hip injury often gets lost in the discussion. I think he’d be fine if it was the hip or the concussion, but both has been too much
In his defense, he has been concussed since like 2022
Luka Dondaballova
Kanye?
Watching him play youd think he averaged 6
What’s really backbreaking is how many times teams score off Laker TOs. They’re 27th in points allowed after a TO so not only are they giving it up but they’re not getting back and letting the opponent score on it.
Yea they feel so much worse when you consider that
Yea like tonight they only had one more TO than Detroit but gave up 11 more points off of them. In the games they lose it always feels like there’s a ton more “pick-6s” than I can remember even in recent years (granted, that may be more anecdotal evidence than empirical).
The way this team is built exacerbates all of Luka’s weaknesses and doesn’t let his strength shine
This. The one trade the Lakers made after getting Luka they chickened out on. Need to see him with a team built around him before declaring him washed.
Need to see him with a team built around him
Didn’t somebody do that once?
It was fairly effective tbf. Before Nico went full r/fatpeoplehate.
Hard to build around him when they’re paying Lebron eight trillion a year
Because he never gets back to contest the fast break
He had 8 in this game and is averaging the most in the nba this season 😅
He has up and down games
4 isn’t a lot for a heliocentric ball handler though
Yeah it really isn’t, the issue is the Lakers don’t defend when he makes a TO
and Lebron also has careless driveway pass turnovers in the same game and isn’t about playing lockdown D at this stage. in his career.
That cuts both ways though, then you could say 8.5 assist a game aren’t a lot for a heliocentric ball handler.
Basketball is about efficiency. All the top distributors usually have a 2.5:1 or better assist to turnover ratio…Luka is always around 2. He may make some brilliant passes but the risk/reward of his “creating” is ultimately not that great.
cause he shoots a ton of the shots himself, that’s not a real problem
Luka doesn’t play for the Suns tho
That’s pretty reasonable for his usage. He’s basically dictating every possession, 4 TOs isn’t that bad
He had 8 tonight and is avg the most in the league this season
Damn that’s a lot of calories
His turnover rate isn’t that crazy. He gets a lot per game because his usage is always so high (#1 in the league this year). He doesn’t compare favorably to guys like SGA, Brunson, Maxey who protect the ball really well at very high usage, but still better than guys like Cade, Harden, and Jokic this season.
Yea I think some guys you just live with the turnovers for the playmaking.
yes but he’s huge liability on Defense also. Feeks like if he doesn’t get 40+ this team has no shot at winning consistently.
Cade averages more assists and less turnovers this year than Luka.
Jokic has 3,5 turnovers and 11 assists this year
And not all turnovers are equal. Jokic is turning it over near the baseline, the 4 other guys are normally going to be in a better position to defend.
Luka is turning it over outside the 3pt line and he’s not going to defend, he’s going to yell at the ref about a non-existent foul while the guy has a open lane to the basket.
That’s circular reasoning though More turnovers contribute to the usage calculation, so he has a higher usage rate partially because he turns it over a lot. If he had no turnovers, his usage rate would be lower
and the turnovers lead to points at a very high rate like tonight.
If he wasn’t such a defensive liability AND other Lakers didn’t give up as many points off turnovers; it wouldn’t be a big deal. The team is pretty poorly constructed for Luka to excel. He also makes some pretty awful turnovers; he could be better than this.
Either way, the Lakers need to retool to be a real contender.
And the continued bad shot selection from 3
He keeps shooting Curry type of shots, when he is a great enough shooter to just dribble penetrate more and take a midrange or kick out
And he’s not athletic like prime Harden was to be a drive threat so people can just ease off him on the 3 pt line since he’s shooting bad from there lately, and he doesn’t try to show that he wants to drive
The Jordan Poole shot selection.
lazy
Yea his 3-point attempt rate has sky-rocketed in the 2nd half of his career, as his conditioning got worse
His average shooting distance went from ~15 feet to a peak 18 feet this season
The first 2 seasons in the NBA he was in the paint 20% of his shots. That’s plummeted to a ridiculous 7% now. He has 5 dunks in the last 3 years combined (had 25 as a rookie btw…). He has quit on attacking inside and is playing like Trae Young now.
I thought as he got in better shape he’d get back to some of what made him great early in his career. But nope. He is clearly only interested in being this type of player now.
Obv he’s talented enough to still be great like this, but IMO he could have been even more special.
he wants the media ‘highlights’. the short clips on ig that shows he’s ‘luka magic’ lol as a mavs fan here.. that’s just who luka is, he won’t change, from Real Madrid to the Mavs, his national team and now Lebron, no one can tell luka to play ethical hoops.. always the same turnovers then complains and poor effort defense.
Nico was right?
But he has the highest usage rate and averages like 9.0 assists per game
But Turnovers contribute to the higher usage rate.
IDK how this is downvoted. It’s literally in the definition for the usage formula.
Cause people read the word usage and think it’s a calculation of how much someone has the ball
bingo
truth hurts fandom ego which triggers downvotes on this site
the turnovers lead to points the other way at a high percentage so his assists are canceled out additionally, his lack of overall defense that offers no resistance to the opponents shots make it even worse. Unless he gets like 55+ PRA it feels like this team really suffers and is behind the 8 ball.
Me in 2k mycareer every time I catch a rebound
Ok but he just saw his man get smashed with an elbow that would make Jon Jones proud
I hate nba commentators, reggie miller or doris burke just shamelessly trying to wash guilt away from REFS.
This possession is all about refs not calling a blatant elbow.
Slow motion video and asking why Luka not moved… in real time video there were no time to move left. You’d think Laravia is defending well up until the elbow.
that has nothing to do with the fact that he just stood there doing nothing. at the end of the day ref calls are not absolute, so why give up defending?
This was called a flagrant 1, wtf are you talking about???
Just more proof that nobody in r/NBA actually watches the games
It did get called.
And it would have still gotten called if Luka made the effort to disrupt the play defensively instead of standing still and spectating like a fan sitting courtside.
Had his hands up before most fans could even react to what happened lol. His reflexes are still there, he’s just mentally a bystander on defense.
Terminator level reflexes
His senses instantly let him know, with mechanical precision, when to complain about the call rather than help on the play
To be fair, an actual good defender would stunt and recover
It’s not Luka’s job to referee the game. He should still be making defensive plays on the ball and not acting like how Josh Allen does after every play.
He really did get some torque on it like a Bones elbow lmao, perfect description
Lmao ikr. Duren almost took his head off.
It was a fucking hellbow
[removed]
Scoring a lot of points blinds people to obvious flaws.
As a Dirk/Mavs fan of 25 years really the only good thing about the entire trade is the disappearance of the Slovenian LukaMavs accounts to Lakers land. Now I no longer have to read their lamentations that Luka got robbed of 1-2 MVP awards and Bill Simmons & Co’s anti Luka bias is to blame for it.
Luka deserved every single 1st team all-nba selection he received and I will fight anybody who will say otherwise, but he was not robbed of any MVP awards.
They’re such a delight to have making hate posts on LeBron 24⁄7 lol
I see my old friend “SloHoopsFan” is advocating to bench LeBron. LMAO
I’m already tired of it, but we went through the same thing with getting LeBron. Like there’s whole swaths of people who just can’t accept that one can be critical of a player while also supporting them. They all deal in absolutes. Frustrating stuff
What? Bill Simmons and Nick Wright slobber all over Luka
Nothing gets past Nico tho
The media has always shitted on Luka’s defense and how much he complains to the refs.
It has gotten worse in the lakers honestlyor maybe its because thwres so many lazy defenders he looks worse now
That’s probably the reason. Dallas always did a pretty good job of building a team around Luka that had elite defenders. Lakers haven’t had the chance to do that yet since it’s still early days and they don’t really have much valuable assets to trade.
They did. Reggie has always hated Luka
why ?
He does not hate Luka lmao. He’ll speak candidly about him. That’s all. It’s hard to say Reggie Miller has ever actually hated anybody in his life
Cheryl miller every time she beat him at basketball
40 ball? That’s cute, only 65 points short.
Spike Lee
nah, they went to a strip club with Kramer after he got tossed. They’re good now.
I didn’t know Cheryl Miller’s brother played basketball
Because of shit like this? He does not hate Luka though, but if he did, this would be one of the reasons. He is great with the ball on his hands. But without it, he looks like this. Infuriating.
It’s not like Reggie is making this up, dude. Or that it’s the first time it’s been obvious.
People assumed it was a small issue that he could be trained to improve on. No one could foresee he’d objectively refuse to play defense.
I mean, he’s been on the Mavs five years. It’s why they built a roster with physical defenders and lob/cut threats and a good second option to defer to.
The Lakers roster isn’t equipped to deal with Luka’s problems
But that’s the thing. Why does a team have to be built around his lack of defense when he can just putting more effort
No team has to but if they don’t it’s a waste of Luka’s amazing offensive abilities. As we saw in Dallas, there is a way to build a contending team around Luka.
Why did the Knicks have to trade all their assets for Bridges and OG and Hart? Brunson can put in more effort but he’s still going to be ass on defense at the end of the day.
Sometimes good players need to be hidden defensively.
I feel like even if he tried hard he’d still be pretty limited, dude isn’t particularly athletic, has zero lateral quickness, and expends tons of energy on the other end of the floor.
It’s not an excuse for how trash his effort is, but I could see how it’d be easy for him to not give a shit when he kinda sucks to start with
Man I dont wanna hear that. Curry went from being a liability to being competent on defense. He runs like 10 miles a game with his off ball movement and still brings effort on defense. If he can do it, Luka at 6’7 can as well.
You’ll get no argument from me there dude
I don’t understand how guys can be offensive geniuses on one side of the court but dunces on the other end.
A lot of it comes down to lack of energy and his willingness. Luka plays heliocentric basketball it’s hard to always be the offense and then come back down on defense and be good when everything runs through you. The Mavs would be contenders if Luka played for that team because they built the team to be elite defensively and let Luka solely play offense. The issue is this Lakers team doesn’t have that.
Guys I’m starting to think trading Luka was a mistake
If he gives a shit about winning this is the easiest way for him to improve overall
Seems like Nico foresaw, for better or worse.
When we went in our finals run the only good team Luka has played on. We would funnel his guy right to our Center. Lakers have no personnel to do that at all.
AR for AD. its the only path.
Unfortunately that money doesn’t match at all
Luka was trying to get an offensive foul called for his boy. That was his defensive contribution
work smarter not harder. lmao
Dudes has always been lazy as hell on defense. His offense is just so extraordinary you have to deal with it.
Luka’s closest comparison is and has always been James Harden
I’ll say it, harden is the way better defender. They are pretty much the same players in the regular season. Luka is the ultimate playoff riser and that’s the difference.
A way better defender but a way worse playoff riser
The only thing Harden gets to rise in the playoffs is the fans from their seats…as in getting up and leaving early.
Harden was one CP3 injury away from a ring.
The James Harden discourse would be so damn different today if he took down the Warriors and won the chip
Woulda been the greatest ring of all time too.
Harden Rockets was the 2nd best team to rival the prime Warriors (Cavs #1 ofc)
Harden’s Rockets took more games off the KD warriors in one series than the Cavs did in 2 Finals.
and a foot on the line from kd
We don’t know they still win. Got to play the games. Warriors had wins while CP3 was still there
Luke is more skilled but Harden was/is way better at orchestrating a full offense
Harden also plays better defense. Not a cone
We’ve come full circle from the harden defense memes
No one is saying he was all nba but he wasn’t this bad.
He was horrendous too, lets not change history. He was also an clear negative
He was a really bad perimeter defender but surprisingly good post defender. Obviously there were more opportunities to showcase the former than the latter as a guard
From Haren to Oncic
I’m always left wondering how old are people that write comments like this.
Harden’s defense used to be on Shaqtin a Fool regularly. He sure has come along way lol.
15, they’re 15
Probably the same age as anyone who says that Luka is more skilled than James Harden.
Harden did have his years in Houston of not playing defense but he flipped the ball switch one year and started putting in effort
He was a stack of cones at one point…
I mean Cade’s comps were Harden/Luka and Cade plays great defense.
More like shorter Jokic. Harden is more athletic than he seems.
The real issue is that he is having his worst offensive season of his career so far so it compounds and makes the defensive issues stand out even more than they usually do
33.7⁄8.3⁄8.6 on 60.7%TS, looks pretty similar to most of his other seasons to me. What makes you say that?
his efficiency is propped up by his all time high ft rate lol. from the field he’s not as efficient. so sure on paper it’s the same but not in game. also turnovers are an even worse thing for him this yr. he’s been padding the box scores like crazy while his team gets blown out, i’ve never seen a player who can play so bad yet u look at the halftime box scores and he’s on pace for a 30pt triple double lmao. also lets not act like his rebounds are impactful, he’s not out here grabbing tough contested boards or offensive boards. he just runs to the ball and the team makes way for him cuz it’s a fast break starter for him to have an easy rebound
It’s very clearly a down year for Luka and even his long time fans will admit that.
Hopefully he finds a way to pick it up in the 2nd half of the season once AR comes back but honestly a big part of the issue is the roster just does not suit his playstyle. Playing with Luka requires very specific types of players that the Lakers are really lacking.
Say what you want about his defense, but his offense has also been so bad since he injured his leg at the end of October. This dude has had lower body injuries every single year and has never once sat out nearly long enough to recover from them.
He’s going to end his career so early because he’s too dumb to just give himself time to heal. It already may be too late for his lower body health to ever get back to normal tbh.
He’s basically Eden Hazard lmao. Both extremely skilled and probably top 3 in their prime, but suffered a lot of lower body injuries. Which are also compounded by the fact that they show up out of shape for like half the season. It’s not a coincidence that he keeps picking up these injuries and being out of shape has a lot to do with it. Both of them are likely to also start declining before 30 too
My wife is like “why don’t Jokic and Luka get rid of that fat like the other plays did” and my response is basically…yeah I dunno why. Jokic you might argue wants the body weight but I can’t see it doing Luka any good, especially with his leg injuries.
Jokic made his play style work with his physique, but Lukas is in spite of it
But didn’t Luka lost it during the offseason? Not into nitty gritty numbers, but wasn’t he on the Men’s Health cover working out and all?
He mightve lost some weight but he’s still got one of the highest body fats in the league.
Jokic has said that when he lost weight he felt too easy to push around so he prefers to keep weight on. You can definitely argue he goes overboard but at least there’s a reason to be somewhat heavy. Luka doesn’t really have any excuse. I still don’t understand how any of these guys manage to gain weight during the season though.
You can see what Jokic was like when he was lighter, he got pushed around more often so had to bulk up. I don’t see Luka benefiting from being fat
Also add he wants to play for his country every offseason.
Also he looks fat again.
Up to the Lakers and Luka to find a way to lessen his load. He’s highest usage rate by a wide margin rn with barely anything to show for it.
The other guy who could lessen it was injured playing the Luka role as well.
Reminds me of the Mavs when we just imploded whenever Luka wasn’t on the court.
Luka WANTS the ball. He wants to play 40 minutes a game. He wants to play the entire 1st quarter. I don’t know if ppl understand this. He wants to control the game, make sure he gets a triple double and he will play tons of mins trying to do it. That’s how he’s always been. Jason Kidd couldn’t even get him off the court in garbage time in a lot of games.
Didn’t know Scott Brooks was employed.
Random but yeah.
Iirc he was Redick’s first assistant coach hire.
He needed those secrit plays
His defense obviously isn’t good and needs to be better but this was such a weird time to bring this up. To the point where it felt pre ordained and to fit an agenda he was pushing (same guy who said he’s rooting for Ant when they played the Mavs in the WCF)
At this point of the game Luka had been fine on defense and was carrying pretty hard on offense, keeping them alive, and on this specific play there was a shooter in the corner and it was an offensive flagrant foul on Duren. If you want a helper there fine… I guess? But I promise you there was a better example if you’re dying to push that agenda
Exactly this.
Nba commentators and pushing agendas, league narratives are so lame
Definitely pushing it. It’s like if you hate SGA and you see him get a normal call and then you talk about him foulbaiting and flopping. Like you are obviously pushing agendas at this point and you have been waiting for a replay to make that point and settled for this one. I mean the guy got a elbow to the back of the head, put Amen Thompson there and even he is not doing much.
Seeing the comments here supports that claim, people are waiting like vultures to find a post to shit on the players they hate, they settle for this and still get their upvotes
Reputation’s hurt him. He’s been good defensively this past few games but any time an opportunity comes they will bring it up, especially on nationally televised broadcasts where it’s pretty obvious these guys don’t /can’t watch all the games.
He was not good defensively in this game
I think you have more of an agenda than the announcer on this one. Even in middle school and high school ball, the defender should step in to cut off any drive here and then close out to the corner should be pass it there. The announcer was 100% valid and in this replay Luka’s lack of effort sticks out immediately. Anyone who watches this video and jumps to Luka’s defense is the one with the agenda
Looks like he just saw his teammate get elbowed in the face
If this was the only instance of him doing this during the game you’d be on to something but, sadly, there were multiple more instances of him cementing himself to the ground in his now trademark bitching pose while an opposing offensive player waltzed right on by as if the Lakers only had 4 players on the floor.
You still continue to play
Threw his hands up because of the goddam offensive foul Reg, you halfwit
Yeah but it’s generally an issue with Luka that he’ll start asking for a call as soon he perceives a foul rather than play the possession out first. He needs to stop being so reactive with that because it takes him out of the game and hurts his team.
Maybe but for this play, Laravia is defending his man and Luka is covering for the corner 3, all good, all until Duren makes a flagrant 1 foul on Laravia with an elbow at the back of the head. No time to even do anything at that point, after the elbow, there is nothing to do other than try to block the guy and make him get an and 1
Armchair analyst moment, so I’m not saying anyone should expect any player to realize this in the moment but the correct move is probably to foul Duren there and convince Reddick to challenge looking for the proximate foul?
Probably not worth it in this game state, but like in a vacuum
Not really sure how he missed that, considering Laravia stayed on the ground for a long ass time after being elbowed in the back of the head
Alongside a ref review to upgrade this to a flagrant foul
Fr - This is an ejection for “certain” players
Exactly this
It’s funny because the way the season started out and Luka looked “locked in”, I knew by December we’d be here lol
I know right… he was in the best shape of his life and 100% locked in before the season. And now it’s the same shit as always. Too much complaining to the refs and 0 defensive effort. This just is who he is. Is it enough to win a chip? We will see.
As a Mavs fan I tried to tell y’all, too many people were still in their feelings over the trade. I saw what Nico saw but fuck no I wouldn’t have done it lol.
Until Luka deliver just average defensive effort, he doesn’t have to be Lou Dort, he probably won’t win anything.
Saw what Nico saw but fuck no I wouldn’t have done it
100% woulda done it, just for a return that doesn’t insult the franchise and frankly the entire league like he did
The return was the big issue with the trade. You wanted a guy for a longer term in better shape so you go to Anthony Davis?
If Giannis gets traded, watch the return will be miles better than what the Mavs got Luka.
Blaming this on Luka is weird
Who else threw Luka’s hands up ? People are tired of seeing players do this in general not just Luka
I’ll do you one better, why did Luka throw his hands up?
I think we can agree that two things are true -
He was reacting to LaRavia taking a brutal elbow to the head, huge offensive foul, and
He had a great view of it, because he stood back and watched instead of stunting and recovering. Duren had LaRavia beat since before the clip even started. He had time to react.
If he goes to cover Duren, then whats stopping Duren from kicking it to the corner for an open 3
He’s about one foot from the paint. He’s not guarding the three anyway…
Legitimately hilarious how every Luka thread is filled with people somehow defending him. He’s so reminiscent of Harden in every way. From playstyle to a diehard fan base that will never allow someone to call him out.
This is actually a great example on how the idea of the media is to push narratives and actual plays don’t matter. This is an extremely obvious example because Miller decided to not even pretend to care about the play where Luka does nothing wrong and there is an absurd elbow to the head going on, and yet at least half the thread agrees with him. When they are a tiny bit more subtle people listen and repeat like parrots because they don’t care about the play, they care about the narrative.
This is how the NBA media cycle works especially when you’re no longer a young player. Luka is having a bad stretch and his team is losing so any clip is going to get this reaction regardless of the context. If next month Luka and the Lakers are playing good this same clip gets down-voted to oblivion.
Reminder theRinger has him better than Giannis
It’s not even the new year and the lakers are warming up the pyre. God I love em.
Nico being right will be the funniest timeline
Most Mavs fan wouldn’t have told you Luka was a perfect player. There was tons of griping about Luka’s defense on the Mavs sub before he was traded.
The issue is asset management. If you choose to move on from Luka at 25, you better get a hell of a lot more than a 32 year old AD, a role player and a 1st
There is no timeline where Nico was right, because he objectively made a poor asset management decision given the information he had at the time.
The mavs could threepeat with Flagg and Nico would still be wrong.
Good outcomes caused by external variables might help someone keep their job after a shitty decision, but it doesn’t make the decision any less shitty.
Honestly stfu and go back to Canadian internet.
Raptors at least got a trophy for trading Demar. Luka better than Demar and all we get is a warm seat on the bench.
Luka plays like he’s on the Harlem Globetrotters or And1. All offense and razzle dazzle with zero D.
Clearly Luka was reacting to Duren’s elbow hitting LaRavia.
Reggie Miller is the idiot.
People need to accept that hes never doing anything except putting the ball in the basket
Nico wuz right!!
If you don’t like that, then you don’t like the 2026 Showtime Lakers baby!
Many terminally online Lakers fans will have you believe that LeBron is to blame for all of this.
Lebron had probably the worst 2nd half I seen him ever play.
Asking Luka to play defense is like asking Vanderbilt to go out and get 33/8/8 like Luka.
Not every player is going to do everything on the court.
I guess JJ’s big speech didn’t change shit
He is right. Also his overall attitude on the court is hurrendous. He sucks the joy out of the game and out of everyone in the arena including his teammates. Just constant dramatic gestures, flailing, whining, looking at refs, jogging around, i can go on and on. Tragedy really, considering what a basketball genius he is.
Not shown are the numerous 4v5s the Lakers are forced to play on defense, because Luka is hung up whining to the refs.