Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - As the Lakers Slump, Luka Dončić Draws More Scrutiny and Criticism

Starting point is 00:00:00 A rough February has Luca Donchich taking a lot of criticism from media and fans alike. How much blame does he deserve for L.A.'s February slump. That's next. You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Lockedown Lakers. First listen to every day Monday through Friday,

Starting point is 00:00:32 no matter how or where you get your podcast. It could be Spotify, it could be Apple. It could be one of the 37,000-plus subscribers. It's a lockdown Lakers on YouTube. But no matter how you do it, it's up to you. You are a part of making the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network in this or any known universe. I'm Brian Komeneski.

Starting point is 00:00:50 The Andy Kemeniski, about 20 years were nearly that covering the Lakers for ESPN, for the LA Times, for the athletic. And these type of years always, it's always can be a frustrated. where, you know, everybody's getting excited for the playoffs. You want to make that drive and your team is not performing in the way that you want. The Lakers are slumping. Luca Donchich has not played particularly well since returning from his hamstring injury. The team isn't making any progress in the standings and criticism is starting to roll in.

Starting point is 00:01:26 So we will break down exactly why people are so upset with Luca, how much of it is fair, how much of it is not. and we'll get to that in a second, but first we do need to tell you that today's episode is brought to you by five-hour energy. Have your cake and drink it to. Birthday cake flavor is back.

Starting point is 00:01:43 No fork needed. Vanilla cakey flavor, caffeinated kick and no sugar. It's party time. Order now at 5-hourenergy.com or on Amazon. So Andy, you know, you look at this and obviously so much of this is related to an extremely frustrating loss

Starting point is 00:01:58 on Tuesday at home to Orlando, one in which Luca shot 8 of 24 from the floor he missed four of his nine free throw attempts and rather inexplicably did not take the shot that was drawn up for him to try and get the Lakers a game winner so I think that as much as anything you know is really pushed a lot of the the discourse to start examining Luca yeah I mean it is so out of character for Luca Donchich who is both as confident an NBA star as you're going to find. And also a player that does not shy away from shots in general.

Starting point is 00:02:42 Like Luca is a high usage player. I say that not as a criticism or a compliment. It's just a fact. He is a high usage player. And he is a scorer. He is leading the lead in scoring. So I think just the passing up of the shot in general has added some volume to this. I think there There's also an element of media reacting to media, reacting to media. There's a cascading effect in the way you see the way a lot of media works. And Brian and I, having done this for a long time in various platforms, various mediums, you react to the reaction very often. And there can be an echo chamber and there's a.

Starting point is 00:03:27 And you play the clip of, you know, this guy from ESPN saying that and we, you know, you react to what they're saying, do you agree, do you not agree? It becomes a segment on radio and all that. And the last piece of this, too. And then we can start getting into some of these specific criticisms, how fair are some of these, how unfair are some of these, how relevant, and also what needs to happen moving forward, like what's most important. But there is an element of Luke is a damn Laker now.

Starting point is 00:03:58 And it's not like Luca hasn't gotten attention before. It's not like he hasn't been high profile. before but when you are a laker that spotlight increases that much more you are automatically part of a conversation that much more you are paid attention to that much more and i think lucas built for it i don't think it's a problem i'm just saying there are going to be people who say this is what has been happening or some of the things we talk about has always gone on going back to dallas and you know what you're right but it's different now that's just reality So, like, you know, some of this is, you know, the numbers, as I mentioned, you know, really since coming back from the hamstring injury, the numbers are down.

Starting point is 00:04:43 There's no question. He's shooting 40% from the floor. Obviously, Tuesday has a big influence on that. But, you know, the scoring is down. You know, basically every number that you can look at is down. Free throw percentage is down. The rebounding is down a little bit. Assists are down a little bit, you know.

Starting point is 00:05:01 And a lot of this correlates, too, to the fact the Lakers just have not played particularly well, even some of their wins. You know, you go back to the Clipper game, which was one where the offense sort of functioned as well as it has been, but it also came against the Clipper team that was without Kauai Leonard for the stretch run and, you know, it was missing. They did not play. They did a lot of players. They were missing a lot of guys.

Starting point is 00:05:29 you know john collins was left the game with an injury you know the lakers were playing a shorthanded clippers team and needed every ounce of what they had to um to to to win the game and so you know the lakers are frustrating people right now the the big three are back and playing and the results don't look great they are you know people are sort of i think i don't want to say if they've had it with a bit like you know it is getting more difficult, you know, to play the game as a fan where you're like, okay, well, you know, I can kind of hold out hope and I can, you know, if X, Y, and Z happens, maybe, you know, you catch fire, you make a run. Like those things are, are difficult to do at a time when the team's

Starting point is 00:06:18 not playing well. And so when that happens, you naturally turn your attention to the guy who is, you know, kind of at the front of it. And You know, I think the other part that strikes me is a lot of this is aesthetic in the sense that one of the major criticism that you see. And this is one that I just think is fair. It's not exclusive to Luca. He didn't invent it. But it's fair. And it's becoming more problematic, I think, over the course of the season is the complaining of the referees.

Starting point is 00:06:57 it's very constant and when you are a team that is not playing well when you are the leader of that team when you are a team that struggles defensively to have a guy who just spends too much time not just arguing with refs but not getting back fast enough to play defense

Starting point is 00:07:22 and costs his team on the other end that we'll get into some of the other criticisms and things, that to me is the one that is the foundational piece of all of it. And the one thing that I will say is kind of unequivocally fair to criticize Luca for. Yeah, off the top of my head, going back to the Boston loss, which featured a lot of complaining that was not exclusive to Luca. Ironically, Luca was one of the few people who didn't get a technical in that game. But he was not immune to complaining or, you know, bad things happening as a byproduct of the complaining. There was a play where he did not get back defensively and led

Starting point is 00:08:06 to a Derek White open three. He just happened to not get teed up in that game. But off the top of my head, I've seen or heard Zach Lowe, Amani Jones, Tim McMahon, Colin Howard, Max Kellerman. I'm sure There are others to say nothing about fans of 710 ESPN where I appear regularly. That has been a topic of conversation about the excessive complaining from Luca. And there is a conversation people have had about the effect of unpleasantness on the game or it becomes unwatchable. And honestly, I don't care about that piece of it. Like, I'm not saying people are right or wrong about them. Just saying I'm uninterested in having that conversation about it.

Starting point is 00:08:49 the aesthetics. But I do think it matters, A, like you said, because of when he argues, it means he's not getting back. And this is a team that means every single bit of help defensively as they can get and all hands on deck. But also, Luca is the face and the leader and the focal point of this team, meaning he sets tones. And when Luca complains at the level that he does, it creates a permission structure for everybody else to complain the way that they do. It also, I think, it creates a contagion for everybody else. And obviously, it is not on Luca if LeBron complains or Austin complaints or who are. These are grown-ass men.

Starting point is 00:09:37 They can make their own decisions about their behavior. But there is a contagious effect to it. And when Luca does this, there is, again, the permission structure. And you mentioned before, it's not singular to Luca. We covered the Kobe POW teams up close. We were in person for most of the home games. Let me tell you, those squads, they bitch their asses off too. Kobe rode the refs constantly.

Starting point is 00:10:04 But here's the difference. And I think this difference really matters. Those teams were good enough to afford occasionally losing focus with the refs because the foundation was built well enough. they could snap back into what they needed to do you know they had a track record of excellence that even if you thought the complaining could be overwrought and too much and at times frankly kind of annoying to watch too those dudes at least earn the benefit of doubt this group has not they haven't accomplished enough as a group to fall back on that sort of confidence whether

Starting point is 00:10:43 inner you know whether internally or externally it doesn't exist it's not you know i don't even sure if it's a confidence thing. It's just they are, you know, when, when things weren't going well, people used to complain that Kobe did it. It's like when you are winning, you can do the, whether you've earned it, not earned it, whatever, when the Lakers were 23 and 11, Luca could complain more without the criticism because he was playing in an MVP level and the team was winning. Currently, Luca is not playing in an MVP level. Currently, Luca is not playing in an MVP level. And, MVP level. I happen to not think he's healthy, which was something we'll talk about the next segment. But the team is slumping. He's not playing at that level, and the tolerance goes down.

Starting point is 00:11:29 There are other things that Luke is getting kind of hammered for, at least among a section of fans, and certainly in media, that I think are a little bit tougher for me to get behind, but we will discuss them next. Walkland Lakers is brought to you by five-hour energy drink. Welcome to the five-hour energy flavor draft. We're looking at every aspect of the draft to let you know which flavors are the best, which ones might be sleepers. The board is set.

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Starting point is 00:13:51 and remember, it's gametime.co, not dot com. So a quick bit of housekeeping here. The Thursday's short show, the little mini show, as we call it, which isn't really that many. It's a pretty substantive piece of content in terms of additional. We're working our asses off for you, people. That's what Brian is trying to say. I am.

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Starting point is 00:15:00 So don't think we've forgotten. We haven't. I, you know, the criticism of Luca, I will set the table with this. We used to work with Max Kellerman, the guy that everybody knows now as, Rich Paul's podcast co-host. And one of the things that Max would talk about, and this was always in the context of guys like Kobe, is this sort of greatness question.

Starting point is 00:15:33 It would always be greater if guys had fewer flaws. Like a great player still has things you would like to fix about them. It would be even better if they were even greater. but they're still great. And sometimes it's easy to kind of overlook that greatness because you're always looking for that one other thing that if they did that, they'd be even better. That's a little bit of how I feel about Luke.

Starting point is 00:16:00 He is undoubtedly a player with flaws, whether that's defensively, sometimes inefficiency, complaining the referees. But a lot of those things are magnified because he is so great that you just want perfection. And there are very few players in the league for whom that doesn't apply. Maybe you could say that, you know, SGA, Yokic are guys.

Starting point is 00:16:35 There's not a whole lot of other greatness for them to, but almost everybody else that applies. And I feel like for me, that's how I contextualize a lot of what we're going to be talking about going forward when it comes to Luca. I mean, I worked with Max at the same time as you, so I have these conversations as well. I understand what Max means by that, but I do think what matters in terms of the way we talk about this is not all flaws are created equally, and they're not all caused the same way. Like, for example, some of Luca's defensive flaws are simply a lack of, by NBA standards,

Starting point is 00:17:13 high-end athleticism. By normal people's standards, Luca is an elite among the elite, among the elite athletes. And Luca is obviously a great athlete, but there are certain elements of raw athleticism and speed that he does not have compared to, you know, 99% of players that, like, he's actually better than overall. So there are some flaws like that are simply uncrossed. But when you get into something like the constant going back and forth at the refs or certain elements of Lucas shot selection, which we've talked about before, like his stepback three can run the gamut from makes him totally effing unguardable.

Starting point is 00:18:02 You might as well go home. This game is over. Like when it is falling to, will you please stop taking that shot in maddening, when it is. And the choices that get made game by game, particularly when some of those are available or, you know, other alternatives are available, those are the type of flaws, if you want to put it that way, that again, don't take away from Lucas greatness. He's obviously an elite player. He's one of the best players in the world. Like that doesn't change. but that doesn't mean that those things that either bother fans or that media harps on

Starting point is 00:18:44 that there's no degree of validity to it at all because again those are those are controllable elements but that's not and we'll talk about some of the criticisms here but like that's not what I'm getting at my point isn't that they don't count my point is that it's easy to lose scale so to speak I think you know to me I I hold Luca, I think the appropriate thing to do is hold the player to the standard of, you know, sort of their own play sets and their own talent sets. And, you know, Luca has a standard that is going to look a little bit different than, to me, than other players, because, you know, some of the shot selection questions,

Starting point is 00:19:33 guys like that that are, you know, scores supremely confident. you're going to have some inefficiency kind of baked in there and you're going to kind of have to tolerate certain things. And that's just going to happen sometimes. But you also need to be able to kind of put those things in perspective. I grade Luca in February against his own standard. He's not playing well by Luca standards, not compared to like the sort of standard of perfection of a guy who is efficient all the time, who, you know, has perfect discipline in his shot selection, all that stuff. I'm grading him based on himself and he's not meeting.

Starting point is 00:20:19 And then, like you say, when guys don't meet that standard, you start, then you can really, you can say, like, this is why it has an effect on the other team. I just don't, I've kind of given him the same way that I sort of gave up expecting Kobe to always exercise shot discipline because part of what made Kobe Kobe was for lack of goodness or maybe that the willingness to break that discipline I feel the same way about Luca I just need more of those shots to go in or I'm going to point out eight of 24 man can't do that right I mean look the way people digest analysis criticism however you want to take it like they're going to be people who say that it's

Starting point is 00:21:06 harping on this stuff being too negative. There's going to be people who say that we're still being too easy on Luca or whichever player we talk about whatever. I've given up a long time ago trying to please people. I just try to be a part of the conversation that I think is smart and that hopefully is enjoyable and useful for fans. But again, just because you can appreciate Lucas greatness and you should appreciate Luca's greatness and Laker fans should be grateful that Luca's on this team and I think look forward

Starting point is 00:21:39 to the future with Luca. That doesn't mean that the things people are pointing out right now, but there's no validity to it just because the fact remains unchanged that Luke is great. I want to get into though when we get back. Jason Timp, host of Hoops Tonight, part of the Volume Network, friend of the show, he has, he had a really interesting take on Luca that I gather went viral that I don't agree with everything in terms of how he framed it, but I do think he brought up some stuff that's interesting. So I want to get into that coming up next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Indeed workplace chaos deadline stacking up in box overflowing and the one position you have to fill still sitting open. And when the pressure is on and you need

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Starting point is 00:23:31 This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. So Jason was on with Colin Howard, who runs the entire volume network. And he was talking about Luca. And for people unfamiliar with Jason, he knows the game extremely well. He played in college. His analysis is really good. And he had an interesting take on Luca, which was Lucas sealing Jason thinks. In so many words, I'm summarizing what he said.

Starting point is 00:24:06 but Lucas sealing in Jason's opinion is perhaps the highest of any superstar in the league, whether you're talking about SGA, Nicaa Yokic, Victor Wemanniama, Cade is coming up in those ranks, Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brown the way he's playing right now, Brunson, Spider, Jason Tatum, when he's healthy. The ceiling for Luca, when he is on, is the highest perhaps in the entire league, particularly because offensively as a score, particularly with that step back through that I just talked about at times can be maddening. When that thing is on, Luca may truly be unguardable when you take into account all the other ways that he can score and, you know, the other really

Starting point is 00:24:51 hard as bleep shots that Luca's capable of making. But as Jason pointed out, he feels like Lucas floor is the lowest of all those stars simultaneously because when those step-back threes and the other hard as bleak shots to make aren't falling, that he is likely the worst defender among all of those MVP-level candidates. And I don't agree entirely with how Jason framed this discussion just because I don't think he acknowledged Lucas' playmaking enough in this equation and quite frankly, Luca's playmaking against the magic has gone completely

Starting point is 00:25:33 overshadowed. Fifteen assists against two turnovers. Yeah, I mean, he was incredible as a facilitator and a playmaker, and Luca's playmaking is as good or better than, frankly, anybody

Starting point is 00:25:49 in the league. It's on that level. And I don't think Jason acknowledged that part of it enough or how Luca can be a very good rebounder for his position. But his general point that because Lucas game is so predicated on one side of the floor, when the shots aren't falling, it can become incredibly floor lowering for a team, but also the overall effect of how he controls everything with the offense, because he has such an outsized control on the way his team operates offensively. If that can raise the

Starting point is 00:26:26 floor or excuse me raise the ceiling lower the floor in ways that I do understand where he's coming from in the sense that the highs may be the highest but the lows may be the lowest and that can just in and of itself raise questions about if nothing else how do you build around Luca well I think I think that that last part is critical because one of the things when we don't have to get deep into this because it's a whole separate thing of why this summer is so important. This is not a team that's built for Luca. This team was constructed to be an Anthony Davis, LeBron James team. They had Luca gifted to them last season, but really have not been in any real position to recalibrate the roster in meaningful ways around, you know, to truly

Starting point is 00:27:21 accommodate Luca. So that's part of it. is this roster is not built to maximize Luca in that way. We saw what happened in Dallas when they had a roster that was pretty perfectly tailored for him. They went to the finals. So, you know, I think that is important to recognize. The other stuff of it, I mean, I will say this. I think the only person that I put above or comparable to Luca when sort of everything is going well as both a score, a playmaker, a rebounder, and that sort of total package guy is Yokic.

Starting point is 00:27:55 The difference between Yokic and Luka is, I think, consistency. And the fact that Yokic doesn't dominate the ball in the same way. He's got the ball in his hands a lot. But he doesn't dominate the ball in the same way as Luka does. And when he doesn't have the ball, he is a more effective player. He still has a more better influence. influence on it in terms of being the secondary guy gets it, moves it, scores, whatever. Nicola Yocch is also the best player on the planet, in my opinion.

Starting point is 00:28:34 So Luca not meeting that standard, it would be cool if he did, but I agree with you. Defensively, we're talking about a guy who the best argument you can make is he's actually not as bad as you think he is on that side of the ball, which I think is true. I do too. But that doesn't mean he's good. Like there's a big difference between, you know, he sucks. No, he doesn't actually. And he, oh, no, he's actually a net positive.

Starting point is 00:29:03 I think most of the time this, Luca can be a net neutral, which given all the other stuff that he's doing makes him overwhelmingly positive. Yep. But it's also like the, you can't play. the way he does and not be willing to absorb this sort of criticism when things aren't going right. The frustration is going to be funneled through you because you are the star, as you noted in the first segment, this is the Lakers. And people are, whether it's your fault or not, people are going to complain. And so I feel like there's sort of a honeymoon,

Starting point is 00:29:52 period with Luca where fans were so, just so flipping excited to have him and so excited that this franchise had a direction to go because everyone understood the dead end that was LeBron and AD as a partnership that just wasn't going to work, particularly given LeBron, you know, this to me is the first year you sort of really see the battle between him and Father Times starting to tilt the wrong way. It hasn't been bad, but his floor as a player is lower on a night-to-night basis. Yeah. This is the part of it that Luke is going to have to get used to.

Starting point is 00:30:39 L.A. I mean, the L.A. style version of it. I mean, I don't know if Luca has to get used to it or not. I don't know how much look at care. I have no. I mean, I'm saying truly. I have no idea. Let me rephrase that.

Starting point is 00:30:52 This is your part of it that is going to become a consistent part of the conversation. That's a better way of putting it. Yeah. I mean, how much this affects or doesn't affect Luke, I have no idea. I mean, he's, you know, there are certain athletes that, you know, NBA players that we know are hyper online. Like LeBron is, for example, hyper online. LeBron is very aware of things that are said about him, often responds. directly or passively directly enough that you know exactly what he's referencing.

Starting point is 00:31:27 You know, Kevin Durant practically keeps a log of things to address or whatever. Luca is really pretty offline. I have never gotten, you know, I think in Dallas maybe he had more of an idea of what was said about him locally just because it's local. I didn't mean to imply that, like, Luca's rabbit earring all this. So that wasn't what I really met. Like I said, I think it's just, it wasn't part of this level of scrutiny and criticism for a year or so, whether he played well or he didn't, particularly when he came back in just rip in shape.

Starting point is 00:32:09 Luca was sort of set outside of the frustrations with the results on the floor in ways that I just don't think he's going to. to be going for it. I agree with it. I don't know how much he listens to it or cares. I'm almost positive he's at least he's listening to this show. We will gladly have him on as many times as he wants to counter anything we're saying. Here's a comment on the live on the live chat as we you know, we're sitting near toward the end. This is a conversation we can carry on going forward. But this from CV God 1432. He's just overrated. He's like some flashy trick player. How can I trick the refs? That's not basketball. I think that gets to a lot of it. Like some people is a little like Hardin in the sense that

Starting point is 00:33:00 people do not like watching James Hardin play basketball. There's a big group of people that just don't like the experience. You know, sometimes Hardin makes it funny, lights it up, he does amazing things. I think Luca is aesthetically and energetically way more fun. then Harden. But I get- Luke at the very least, Luca looks like he enjoys himself. When James Harden looked joyless, even peak James Hardin, great a player as he was. There's a joy that Luca brings that Hardin never did. And there's sort of an aloofness to Harden and, you know, a question to commitment,

Starting point is 00:33:40 a question to winning and all these other stuff. Luca is hyper-competitive. He cares deeply about winning. And then I don't question any of that stuff. but I understand why people look at him and say he's overrated. He's one-dimensional. I think that comment was wildly off base. I think, you're a guy, looking at a guy who can put up 30-something points a night,

Starting point is 00:34:04 nearly 10 rebounds a game would be averaging more assists on this team if there was two people on it who could shoot. You know, I think that, though, crystallizes a lot of it. people don't like the experience. They don't like what it looks like. They don't like that type of basketball, which is dominated in a lot of ways by one player. They don't like the perception that he is,

Starting point is 00:34:32 you know, that he's one dimensional, only cares about one side of the ball. I will say this, and I do think it's important to point it out. I mentioned it earlier, but we didn't really dwell on it. I do not think he is healthy.

Starting point is 00:34:43 I agree. You look at these six games in February. Coming back from this hamstring thing. You watch him on the floor, how he's moving. There are two or three times a game where he seems to grimace and limp and all this stuff. I don't think, not only do I not think he's healthy, I don't think he's particularly close to being what you would consider to be fully healthy. And for him, you know, when he, a little bit of a reduction in the burst that he has, the ability to change speed, the ability to do that to get into the paint

Starting point is 00:35:15 and create the kinds of shots that he wants makes a bigger difference with Luca than it might other stars. Well, we've also seen too, going back to, and we can quit on this, but going back to the trade that brought Luca here in the first place

Starting point is 00:35:29 when he was injured, it took a minute before Luca really started playing like Luca Donchich. And we've seen now a few times that Luca may just not be a guy that gets back from injury quickly. Like, you know, he's one of those guys that once he's back, he just looks like himself.

Starting point is 00:35:52 He may not be one of those guys for whatever reason, in some respect, unless it's controllable, I don't even know if the reason. Or, you know, he comes back before he's sort of ready, so to speak, before he's healed.

Starting point is 00:36:05 And, you know, just the, a 65, 75, 75, whatever percent version of him has, you know, kind of accentuates the flaws. Sure. Whatever it is, but I agree with you. I don't think he's healthy. Like all the way healthy. And let it be known too. We are not unaware or dismissive of some of the potential concerns about him over the long term. In terms of the amount of basketball that he's played and the reps and things like that,

Starting point is 00:36:33 I just don't think it's relevant quite yet for this conversation. Lots of interesting stuff, hopefully to talk about following Thursday night's game against the Suns. This is a massive one. for the Lakers. Again, a reminder, the, funny about the conversation, talking about Rob Polinka, the Dodgers model,

Starting point is 00:36:51 what's coming for them. That will be the second show on Thursday. So make sure you check that one out. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 37,000 subscribers to the channel. We'll see everyone after the game.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - As the Lakers Slump, Luka Dončić Draws More Scrutiny and Criticism

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