Subscribe
Follow Us
As the NBA world continues to grapple with the fact that the Mavericks freely traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for quarters on the dollar, one league personality who actually liked the deal for Dallas was Charles Barkley, the former Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns forward who now helps to provide the narrative to the Association on Inside the NBA.
To Barkley, AD is a winning player who should get Dallas over the hump, whereas Doncic is more of an unknown, even if all 28 other teams would happily take on that mystery in favor of his sky-high potential.
Discussing the trade in an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show, Barkley noted the challenges of keeping Doncic's conditioning in check for his NBA prime and the criticism that comes along with it, as if anyone knows about the trouble of dropping weight, it's the “Round Mound of Rebound.”
“If everybody is saying it, it’s probably fair. I find it fascinating that all of us have been talking about Luka Doncic’s conditioning for three years, now all of a sudden it’s an insult. I don’t think people were hiding it; I think everybody has heard the same criticism for three years.
“Now, all of a sudden, I saw his dad like, ‘They’re saying these things about my son,’ Mr. Doncic, in fairness, I watch TV. They’ve been saying the same thing for three years; they’re not saying it out of the blue,” Barkley explained.
“I will say this: he’s a great, great player, but the Dallas Mavericks know him better than anybody; I know he’s a great player from a distance, but the Dallas Mavericks had to make a decision, do we give this guy five years for $350 million dollars? I give them credit; they made a decision. It might come back to bite them in the a**, but that’s your job.”
Is Barkley on the money? Well, as an overall rule, no, even if Doncic was, to paraphrase Ryen Russillo, smoking cigarettes as he takes the ball up the court, he is such an incredible offensive player that most teams would have Bics ready on the bench in case he needed a light.
But when it comes to being an overweight NBA All-Star, few have Barkley's level of experience on the subject, as he was smashing cheeseburgers to avoid having to sign with the 76ers after being drafted by the team.
Can Doncic get his body right? Will he put in that work when he's already having so much success in his current body? Frankly, it's hard to say, but if he's this good now and he's still young enough to be on his parent's health insurance, the NBA won't be able to even fathom what he could do if he's firing on all cylinders.
For the Lakers, that potential is worth the risk, especially since his floor is already really franking good.
