Lakers followers see supremely proficient newcomer Luka Doncic making breathtaking no-look passes. They see him swishing pictures from astonishing distance. They see him rebounding with the frequency and ferocity of a 7-foot middle. They see him meshing with LeBron James as in the event that they’d performed collectively for years.
They conjure visions of an NBA championship — this season.
What followers hear, nevertheless, is that Doncic’s earlier employer — the Dallas Mavericks — thought of him fats. And lazy.
A fats, lazy beer drinker.
A fats, lazy, beer-drinking hookah smoker.
What’s subsequent, Doncic was a fats, lazy, beer-drinking, hookah smoker feasting on a 77-ounce New York strip steak with a facet of the Slovenian specialty of sliced potatoes layered with cheese and heavy cream?
(OK, he did encourage a 77-ounce New York strip steak referred to as “The Luka” at Nick and Sam’s Steakhouse in Dallas. And Doncic has professed his love of his grandmother’s potato moussaka.)
There additionally was the odd episode final season of Mavericks government Michael Finley taking a beer from Doncic’s hand after the guard had simply led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals by scoring 36 factors. Was Finley nervous Doncic is likely to be hungover when the Mavericks opened the finals in opposition to the Boston Celtics seven days later?
Doncic appeared surprised when Finley grabbed the can, refraining from parroting the outline of the one official NBA-approved beer that Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris character instructed a bartender in “Landman.”
“It’s Michelob Ultra. There’s more alcohol in orange juice,” Norris stated. The bartender reminds him that ingesting is ingesting, and Norris replies, “I’ll tell you what, bud. You watch me drink six of these sons of b—es and I’ll come back in here tomorrow and drink six whiskeys and you tell me if you notice the f—ing difference.”
As a substitute, Doncic, who turns 26 on Friday, hasn’t stated something publicly concerning the whispers out of Dallas, a few of which forecast an apocalyptic expiry. Respected NBA author Sam Amick of the Athletic wrote that “people who witnessed Doncic’s last days in Dallas … predict his basketball demise, highlighting a health history that, as some see it, will likely lead to catastrophe in the next five years or so.”
Amick additionally talked about the beer and hookah hoo-ha, which triggered a flood of headlines. A hookah, in fact, is a water pipe for smoking tobacco that along with addictive nicotine can embrace publicity to tar, carbon monoxide, heavy metals and carcinogens.
None of that sat effectively with Mavericks basic supervisor Nico Harrison, a no-nonsense former Nike government who makes no secret of his give attention to diet and wholesome dwelling. Doncic’s off-court conduct was off-putting to Harrison, who grew to become more and more uncomfortable with the prospect of paying the famous person a five-year, $345-million max contract this summer season.
Uncomfortable sufficient to persuade new Mavericks house owners Patrick Dumont and Miriam Adelson that the prudent transfer was to commerce him.
Doncic expressed shock on the commerce and may effectively be considering exhausting about lightening up somewhat than lighting up. The hazards of tobacco and extreme ingesting are effectively established and never conducive to a prolonged, Corridor of Fame NBA profession.
Undoubtedly, people shall be in search of indicators. Moments after a win in 2022, an interviewer knowledgeable Doncic that he’d turn into the primary participant to file a 60-point, 20-rebound triple-double. Doncic laughed and stated, “I need a recovery beer.”
That admission prompted not less than one reporter to chronicle what he consumed when he retired to the locker room, a “60 burger with some water, a protein shake, a beer.”
