DALLAS — As he signed off from All-Star weekend in Cleveland late Sunday night, a smiling Luka Doncic remarked to reporters that “you guys won’t see me for the next three days.”
Considering his torrid play and heavy workload in recent weeks, Doncic certainly earned a respite from basketball — and reporters.
No matter where Doncic goes or how successfully he disappears from public view, he’ll always be a topic of conversation, and such was the case on Tuesday morning when Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was interviewed on 96.7 FM/1310 AM The Ticket [KTCK-AM].
Co-host Craig Miller, who is one-third of the station’s Morning Musers, asked Cuban how much of Doncic’s mid-season surge was due to motivation of not being voted an All-Star starter, and by his slow start to the season.
“I think it’s all the above,” Cuban said. “I think he was humbled a little bit. I think he didn’t like being called out for his weight and other things. And it finally clicked that there’s a level of discipline that’s required.”
In reality, Cuban was expounding on comments that Doncic himself made last week during a one-on-one conversation with The Dallas Morning News, when he said “I relaxed too much” after playing in the Olympics last summer, and that an in-season change of diet “was the key” to his weight loss and improved play.
Some fans, though, were quick to jump on Cuban’s answer as overly critical of the young superstar, who turns 23 next Monday.
Within the context of the question that was asked and his full answer, this topic isn’t revelatory for Doncic or the Mavericks franchise.
There was a general understanding that Doncic’s conditioning would be affected by the Olympics’ August finish and that, like many younger NBA players, Doncic’s eating and training habits weren’t going to be finely tuned immediately after his transition from teenage European star to the NBA.
Dirk Nowitzki, for example, has said many times that it took him several years to develop proper eating and training habits. Of course back in those days, Nowitzki has noted, eating candy bars and fast food was fairly commonplace for NBA players in general.
“All athletes at his level go through it at some level, where things are just easy and you’re always used to being the best,” Cuban said on The Ticket, continuing his answer of what motivated Doncic’s surge.
“And you’re always used to getting all the accolades. And then when something doesn’t go according to what you would expect, it makes you reconsider.
“And I think what people don’t realize about Luka, he is smart. You know, I’m not talking about Harvard-MBA-smart. I’m talking about street smart. I’m talking about common sense. I’m talking about dedication and effort. He knows what he needs to do and it finally clicked that if he’s going to be the best, and I know he wants to be the best that there’s certain things he has to control. And once he got a handle on those things, it’s just been Katy bar the door. He’s just been unstoppable.”
How unstoppable? Doncic opened the season by averaging 22.5 points on 42.7% shooting in October. Since then he’s averaged 27.3 points on 44.6% shooting in November; 26.0 points on 47.5% shooting in December; 25.6 points on 43.8% shooting in January.
And in eight February games: 36.3 points on 46.9% shooting, including 43% shooting on 3-pointers.
Not coincidentally, Doncic’s surge, coupled with the Mavericks’ dramatic improvement into the NBA’s No. 5-ranked defense in efficiency and No. 2 in scoring defense (103.3 per game), has Dallas at 35-24 as it returns to practice on Wednesday evening.
The fifth-place Mavericks open post-All-Star play with a potentially pivotal game Friday at fourth-place Utah.
