Luca Doncic s strongest FIBA ​​career, is the secret just to lose weight?

Luca Doncic lost weight. According to Slovenian and Italian media, he lost more than 30 pounds (14kg) this summer. The head coach of the Slovenian national team, Zmago Sagadin, also confirmed the news:

"Luka Doncic lost 12 kilograms, which was necessary for his body. At the beginning, he needed several games to adapt to the best. Against Italy, despite his slightly exhausted physically, he performed very well." The coach said in an interview with RTVSLO.

"The problem is that we only have seven players who can play 30 to 35 minutes. We desperately need Kankar and Nebo. If the rotation is better, we can keep a full 40 minutes of fast pace," he added.

these two passages are very important. In the European Championship, which is relatively lacking in refined data statistics, this interview is considered an "official endorsement" of some of my views below - I am very lucky that I found this interview.

In this European Championship, basketball fans around the world were waiting to see how Doncic blocked the gods and killed the Buddhas after losing weight. In the end, he did not disappoint everyone's expectations and played the strongest FIBA ​​single-game performance in his career so far:

averaged 34.7 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 2.7 steals per game. These include:

The scoring champion of this European Championship, nearly 5 points ahead of Giannis, who were second-placed;

The efficiency value of this European Championship is first (36.5), and 4.5 points (32.0) ahead of Shen Kyung and Giannis, who are also second-placed;

[Efficiency value: EFF, used to measure the overall value of a player, the method is to add positive contributions (scoring, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks), subtract negative contributions (missed shots, missed free throws, mistakes), and divide by the number of appearances. 】

The player with the most three-point shots and hits in this European Championship (11.1 three-point shots per game);

The player with the most free throws and hits in this European Championship (14 free throws per game), which is close to 5 free throws with second-place Giannis (9.4).

The greatest achievement is that he led Slovenia, who was retired and lacked soldiers to the semi-finals of the European Championships, and faced the hot German team in the semi-finals, defeating his opponent for three quarters, and finally lost with only 8 points.

Let's take a look at Luca's performance in all FIBA ​​events in his career so far:

You can easily see that Luca is "far ahead" in 2025 - with a significant increase in production, his efficiency has not declined. Even the three-pointers that are not considered accurate this year have actually reached the level of most years of their career (maybe the short three-point line of fiba is not suitable for Luca?).

And what is more worth mentioning is that such performance was played by him with his worst teammates in his career.

Then the question is.

How did he do it?

Is it just relying on "thinning"? The answer is of course no.

Doncic in the 2025 European Championships is certainly a lot thinner than the NBA 2024-25 season, but if you extend the timeline to 2021 or even earlier - the 2025 version of Doncic is by no means the slimest, most flexible and fastest among them.

So what is the secret to Doncic's best performance in his career this year's European Championship? This is actually a question I have been paying attention to since the first day of the European Championship:

"Watching Doncic's European Championship, in addition to looking at changes in his speed and technology, I am also very interested in the changes in his game form - this is not entirely related to the narrative of "weight loss", but another interesting topic: How far can Doncic C be when his teammates are bad enough?

We have seen Kobe in 2005-07; LeBron in the 2018 playoffs; 18-19 Harden; Jokic this year - sometimes, the external environment does not force you to do it, you really don't know where your upper limit is - it is also this time, we can best see the background and potential of a player.

How will Luka Doncic lead such a Slovenian team this year, I am very interested. "

Above are the content I wrote on the first day of the European Championship, and I have been lying in the draft box - I am very happy that I found the answer after the European Championship.

I summarize it into three parts: simpler, faster, and more without the ball.

Next we will enter the first part:

1. More concise physical fitness is the first difficulty Luca encountered in the European Championship.

The Slovenian team in the 2025 European Championship - the Dragic brothers are old and say goodbye to the arena; Mike Toby is replaced by Josh Nebo (a younger black insider planned by Slovenia), but Nebo is dramatically missing the European Championship due to injury; Conchar also announced his withdrawal from the national team due to injury - those who helped the Slovenian European Championship win in 2022, the names we know have gradually grown old or left.

In addition, marksman Prepelic is already 32 years old; 33-year-old Muric was forced to go from a substitute to a core rotation in his last national team; Omic was unable to even enter the national team in 2022, but became Doncic at the age of 33; Nicklic, who is only a marginal player in the team in 2022, became Doncic's second ball holder at the age of 30...

In short, if you are not familiar with the above names, you only need to know-Doncic's unprecedented lack of players with developing offensive ability is enough.

This Slovenian team is almost forcing Doncic to play every round, and there is no qualified center forward partner - even for Doncic, who is used to being a "ball-held core", such offensive load and pressure are unprecedented..

Warm-up match, Slovenia won 1 win and 6 losses.

Through the above historical data, we can see that Doncic's average score per game in previous national teams was about 26 points, and his average score in four warm-up matches was also close to this number (22.5 points, but the first game was time limit, and he was injured and retired in the third quarter) - When Luca found that his "regular style" was no longer enough to help a weak-talented team win, he began to find ways to do more:

Luca is a basketball genius. He should soon realize that his number one rival in [increasing production] is [physical energy] - as a ball-holding core, he cannot create influence like Curry does by running without the ball or covers like Jokic. Every ball-holding attack means more confrontation, get rid of it and the physical energy consumption it brings.

He is not a tireless physical weirdo like 26-year-old James and Kobe, so he must make his game simpler - to reduce the consumption in a single offense and participate in the offense more times in the same unit time.

Doncic has many such scenes in the warm-up matches and the first few European Championships:

Doncic still chose to dribble himself away, frequent dribble passes through delays, and many layups during marching - Luca certainly has the ability to do these things.

In the first few games, he felt a little "testing how flexible he is after losing weight".

But as the game round progressed, Luca began to play more and more concisely.

His simplicity also has three marks: more three-pointers, more fouls, less luck and more passes.

Look at the three-pointers first:

Three-pointers

This European Championship, Doncic's three-point shots are not only significantly more than all players of the same class - even compared with his career FIBA ​​games.

This is not because his three-pointers were particularly accurate this year, but to save physical fitness - in fact, his three-point shooting percentage this year is only 32%. And his two-point shooting percentage is 62%.

But even if Doncic knows that some of his shots may not make, he still needs to make these shots, because even if his three-point shooting percentage is only 35% or less, this score per round (1.06-0.96) may still be higher than the offensive efficiency of his teammates and even opponents - because the offensive efficiency of the European Championship team is not as good as the NBA.

If we simply convert, convert the score of the 40-minute game into 48 minutes - there are only four teams that average scores more than 106 points in the 48-minute European Championship this season, one of which also includes Slovenia.

A simpler and more decisive move not only means saving physical fitness and "shot two more", but once you find the feel connected, it is a wave of offensive climax that may determine the game.

So, we see that Doncic often seems to have some "wave shots" in this European Championship:

transported to the frontcourt without any fancy, and then ignored the teammates at all. Seeing that the double team did not come up, they took a step back and three-pointer;

dribbled the ball to the frontcourt and used double cover (Double Drag is one of the tactics that Luca played the most in this year, and will say later) directly retreated to the opponent's long arm and took a three-pointer;

without dribbling and threatening the ball and then topped the ball (compared to usual, he used this trick particularly much in this European Championship);

"Ricky", pretending to use the cover of the ball without the ball, and then suddenly ran and bounced out, regardless of whether the rhythm and balance were good, he shot when he caught the ball;

{14 6}

The thug handed over the hand at a very high position, but there was no intention of breaking through, and the three-pointers were directly driven out from a long distance;

There were to switch defense, and even dribble and mobilize the defense to find the rhythm, and directly pulled a small step from the crotch;

The above extremely difficult three-pointers obviously lowered Doncic's three-point shooting percentage on the data table - but we also remember how he used a series of three-pointers to take Italy away and scared the German team into a cold sweat.

Doncic's decisive three-point shooting ended up with a good result: not only successfully increased his scoring output, but also made Slovenia amazingly the team with the second average score per game in this European Championship and reached the semi-finals.

And it is even easier to commit more fouls.

Following

Look at the changes in Doncic's free throw count from 2017 to this year, it is like a "road to blackening".

Doncic averaged 14 terrible free throws per game in this European Championship. Even Giannis couldn't see his taillights.

The fan group has a bad evaluation of "whistlebrating" but creating physical contact to the free throw line is obviously more energy-saving and more efficient than repeating confrontation, getting rid of, and avoiding in the air. In fact, if you want to become a player who can support extremely high output, committing fouls is almost a necessary skill..

Luca's cool back pass. Teammate who just hit a three-pointer shot and practiced again. (However, my teammates can't even catch this ball well, I'm really...)

Then there was a ball that was widely circulated on social media: after pick-and-roll, I didn't break inward, but walked sideways - "seducing" the defensive players - don't go, I'll take the ball when I leave.

Then, a right hand passes straight - penetrates the middle of the four defensive players standing and directly gives it to the center at the basket. (But this center guy...I really...)

is the same operation. After the high-level cover, the opponent will continue to be taken to a higher position - after creating a huge 4-to-3 space in the three-point line, a one-handed over-top pass directly penetrates the middle, with a 3-to-2 bottom line, and the center easily lets out the basket.

Luca demonstrated a terrifying ability - if the opponent cannot limit him one-on-one, as long as he chooses to double-team, then even if he does not have a qualified Xiashun Cake-type center, he can still play the advantage of "more to play less in the middle".

Luca's pass was more imaginative in this round—but obviously, his teammates couldn't match his imagination.

Luka continued to use this move to penetrate the Israeli team's defense, so that Israel did not dare to double-team him later - but the same is true for switching defense. Luka can still create small opportunities for teammates to take advantage of the basket through precise long-term transmission guidance. The game against Israel is Luca's idea of ​​"actively seeking high-level double-teams, creating 4-to-3 within the three-point line, and passing through the defense" is most vivid and successful - but in fact, Luca has been playing like this throughout the European Championship:

Against Italy, it takes the initiative to super high-level cover to induce strong delays to the opponent, and creates 4-to-3 opportunities for teammates within the three-point line;

Against Italy, it is very obvious that the ball holds the ball at a high position to attract double-teams, and takes the initiative to retreat to create a huge space in the three-point line for teammates. In the two rounds, what was amazing was not Luca's long pass - but his long pass was not blindly relying on speed and sending the ball to his teammates who ran out of the opportunity in the frontcourt - but he created a long pass for his teammates himself:

When he was pushing with the ball, when he found that all the defenders' attention was on him, he had a very essential slowdown in these two rounds. With this slowdown, the opponent's entire defense line followed him to slow down - he actually missed his teammate who was about to get off.

These two rounds are like Luca using a big hand to control the silk thread and manipulate the whole game - he is the palm, his four teammates are the fingers, he uses the pass to connect the palm and fingers, and all the defenders are the puppets controlled by this flexible five-finger.

This kind of ball quotient and mind drawing ability that makes the game truly "like an arm and finger" is really amazing.

Pass all the above contents. Luca made his game simpler.

He reduced the number of dribbling times and the frequency of breakthroughs, but he still maintained his scoring output and game influence, and even went to a higher level - this is Luca's personal "tactics", designed and executed by himself. It also means that Luca has a deeper understanding of his own game and his own advantages.

But of course, the "secret" of the Luca European Championship is more than that.

Next we go to the second part. What is the biggest benefit of

Faster weight loss for Luca in this competition? Besides defense, I would say "can help him play faster". In his NBA career, Luca has always been famous for being slow. He likes to fall into positions and lower the pace of "cutting the cow" and his opponent's success rate - before Irving arrived, the Mavericks were one of the teams with the lowest number of rounds in the league all year round, and the Lakers were also very slow in the late All-Star period and the playoffs last season. There is nothing wrong with

slowness. Luca is a top positional battle problem-solving superstar, and slowing down and reducing the number of turns will make it easier to play to his advantage.

But there is still a difference between "can slow down" and "can only slow down" - Jokic and the Nuggets have experienced this transformation. They could only slow down at first, but later after they could get faster and slower, they became the champion team.

This is especially true for Slovenia in the European Championship - this is a team that lacks positional scoring ability except Luca, and defense is not good, slowing down will do more harm than good for them - which means Luca must cooperate with his teammates.

Fortunately, this is not a problem for Luka after weight loss. The "simple" part above

is actually inseparable from the "fast" part - simplicity is not only to save physical fitness, but also to be able to fight faster.

In addition to the above "quick transport to the frontcourt to draw three-pointers", "quick placement/breakthrough to create fouls", "attracting high-level attacks and quickly throwing the ball", and "more long passes", Luca's speed-up attempts at the European Championship also include "more one-stop pushing counterattacks by themselves".

Luca started more push and conversion attempts from the 2023-24 season. After reshaping his body this year, he also brought him to the European arena:

LeBron-style one-stop breakthrough and pass the ball;

one-stop push, using retreat and defense chaos to find misalignment, and directly accelerate the confrontation and take the throwing shot;

single fast break and layup;

backcourt transported over, realizing that the opponent used a small guard to face himself, and directly started to play singles without slowing down. With the help of the inertial confrontation, direction change, feint, and throwing shot of the ball, it was completed in one go..

(In the "Simple" section, Luka also said that many of this kind of play this year are transported in one dragon directly and continuously, and the opponent will make a foul if he jumps. If he doesn't jump, it is another way of play - throwing is just one of them, and another will be written later)

Screen covers in the backcourt, and one dragon rushed straight to the center - seeking collision and making a foul;

A dragon Using teammate "Drag" to cover the cover of the teammate, the opponent takes the initiative to avoid physical contact and directly layup;

Accelerates in a row in the backcourt - whenever the opponent tries to slow down Luka, Luka finds an opportunity to commit a foul;

GIF

There is also a faster three-pointer style - the high-level "Ram After Stack" and "Flat", you have to go to the misaligned simple dribble and find the rhythm and take action directly;

, and come over again, breaking through the middle distance without slowing down, confronting, violating, and throwing;

, one-stop transportation comes over to borrow "Drag" cover and retreat directly to three points;

, high-level cover, accelerate foul;

, in fact, looking back at the video, I think it is still very obvious that Luca is pushing fast in this European Championship.

It's just a pity that FIBA ​​lacks tracking statistics, and cannot use data to tell everyone how much fast break Luka played and how fast the team has accelerated - but fortunately, there is a head coach's "endorsement" (the interview at the beginning), which lets us know that Slovenia is playing fast in a realistic and purposeful way.

is reflected in Luca. It is this fast and concise way of playing that helped him create more rounds and moves, and ultimately helped him achieve the best performance in his FIBA ​​career. Of course, Luca can play like this without his contribution to reducing weight this summer. If it weren't for nearly 30 kilograms of meat, Luca would probably be out of breath if he couldn't push a few rounds of fast breaks.

Next we go to the last part.

More without ball

So is Luca's "secret" this summer just faster and more concise?

No, although these are important, they are not all.

Faster and simpler can only help you shoot more, but it does not help you catch the ball more easily, nor can it ensure the quality of the shot. (Fans of the word shooting quality should all know. It is actually a bit similar to the meaning of "shooting difficulty + rationality")

So how did Luka and Slovenia try to make Luka catch the ball more easily while making the shooting quality easier at the same time?

This is what we have in this part - it is also one of the core changes in Luca's style of playing this European Championship:

More without the ball.

Of course, the off-ball mentioned here is not about letting Luca go to Cos Stephen Curry or Aaron Gordon - running without the ball to cover shooting and cutting are not Luca's strengths. Luka's off-ball style does not happen in the "end offense", but in the "start offense" part:

Luka uses the lower cover of the elbow area to cut out the ball, start the breakthrough immediately, use the opponent's side movement after being caught by the screen, change direction to attack the front foot, enter the sweet area, and throw;

Luka uses the double cover of the ball to get rid of the opponent, start immediately after receiving the ball, and play another pick-and-roll - there is no need to dribble more to change directions and rhythm changes, You can enter the inside line by starting straight;

Wagner pressed step by step, but Doncic took advantage of the double cover and used the position advantage created by the screen to immediately start the third floor to reset the "Re-screen". Successfully get rid of Wagner's misalignment, then took a step and made a three-pointer;

Use the elbow area to cover without the ball, use the position advantage to start immediately, attracting double teams, passing the ball in the crack, assisting the center who is smooth under the screen.

I think these four rounds. The idea of ​​how Slovenia can better create a ball and a mobile phone for Luka is clearly reflected:

is actually very simple. It is through the off-ball cover before receiving the ball to help Luka get rid of her tight opponent without the ball.

Or we can put the principle deeper - it is to use the cover of teammates to help or replace Luka to complete the three links of starting the offense, finding advantageous matches and entering the sweet zone, thereby reducing the large amount of confrontation and breaking, kicking, dribbling, and quick stopping and starting up in these two links - thus reducing the physical energy consumption brought by these actions.

And Luca is also very adaptable to this method - it is reflected in that after he uses the cover to catch the ball, he can immediately start and make full use of the space created by his teammates' cover.

You must know that not all players can do this. Take Davis as an example. Last season, the Lakers also designed a lot of dynamic receiving tactics for Davis without the ball, but Davis's drawing ability and starting habits for defensive positions are not that good, so sometimes there will be some "stutters" between receiving and starting, which wastes some of the position advantages created by unball cover.

is like this.

And the ideal situation should be.

Back to Luca. Of course, the off-ball cover has more than just the role of "helping get rid of/starting" - we said, "helping the stars get rid of the off-ball entanglement and go to the dessert area more easily", which itself is one of the important purposes of the off-ball cover:

Like this, with the help of "Cross" Screen "Get rid of Wagner's anti-receive ball entanglement, and after cutting to the low post, Luca can play back;

This time the off-ball screen was destroyed by Schroeder's delay, but Luca successfully received the ball one-on-one with Wagner at the top of the arc without much effort - a good result;

The opponent used Lock defense to prevent Doncic from receiving the ball, so Doncic cut out with the cover - as long as the screen allows Luca to easily receive the ball at the top of the arc, Luca's work becomes simple. (I'm afraid that Luca will be forced to consume a lot of physical strength during the receiving phase)

Because Luca's receiving threat is so great, almost the entire opponent's attention is on him. Slovenia even derived a series of "East Gravity" tactics that use Doncic's ball without the ball to cut out the restraining force:

This is a "Cross+Pindown" cover tactics, and we have let this tactics go once on it. , but this game can see more clearly how it works:

During the first cross cover, Luca's cutout took away the defensive attention of the opponent's two opponents - the defender against the screener thought he had to delay Luca to prevent Luca from using the start-up advantage to pass his teammates - but he missed his own defensive player. After the cover player made a cover for Luca, he immediately used the bottom cover of the free throw line, and at this time his opponent was unable to return due to delays in going out. A three-pointer was formed with a single empty spot.

Another tactic with similarities. The defender cut from the top of the arc, and Luca borrowed the cover from the penalty area to cut out - the opponent's attention was all on the player holding the ball and Luca. The defender who cut into the bottom line dunk position was empty and no one made up for it.

It started with the "Cross+pindown" tactic, but it was another form of development - Luka did not cut out to the bottom corner, but refused to cover the "reject" and cut out to the top of the arc, using his teammate's lower cover to shoot;

Slovenia played the same tactic for the fourth time - the opponent's entire middle defense line was all focused on Luka, and the online defense was broken by the ball holder, and no one made up for Luka's players, who wanted to make up for Luka but were blocked by the player who did Cross cover. In the end, no one got stuck in Omic's tip-up shot - it felt like everyone in Israel was already confused.

also played this tactic against Italy. After Luca successfully received the ball, she directly pulled three points - we really saw a lot of pulling like this, right?

continued to play the same tactic. This time, the opponent's double-team became more determined, and Luca divided the teammates - a good opportunity, but the teammates did not make it;

played again in the fourth quarter, creating a good opportunity, but the teammate's empty basket shot did not make it.

(In the fourth quarter of Italy, this game of "How Luca creates opportunities for teammates" is vividly reflected, and it is better than that of Israel - but the teammates don't make any of them, it looks too annoying, so they will not be selected)

More off-ball play, more fake moves and fouls, simpler shooting, and faster tactical execution. All the content above

has created the "strongest Luca" we see in the European Championship.

And if I say that Luca has a signature style of playing this time, and can see all the above content in one round - everyone should be interested, right?

For this year's European Championship, as long as you watch Luca more, there is a way of playing that you can't notice:

is this.

The reason I call it "playing style" rather than "tactics" is because this style of play does not have a fixed start - as you can see, in the example, Luca started with "Iverson cut" (movie 1), a high pick-and-roll start (movie 2), a "Zipper" cover under the elbow area (movie 3), and an ordinary double-scene cover with the ball "Double drag".

The starting method is not fixed, but the similarity is actually the subsequent choice - after borrowing these methods to get rid of the online defense, Luca will always break to about 14-16 feet - fake the action and fake it, or read the defensive pass. If there is a chance, the round will end; if there is no chance, he will immediately bounce out and then catch the ball - and finally get a three-pointer.

This kind of playing style is not exquisite, it is a "compromising choice" - but it appears very frequently.

I think this can very well reflect the offensive ideas of Luka Doncic and Slovenia in this European Championship:

First of all, it is fast. No matter what method, at the beginning of the round, when there are still more seconds, create a chance for Luka to start offense as soon as possible;

fast means not too detailed. The part that is not detailed is made up for by Luca's fake actions - I may not have passed you, but I will shake you or not? Do you want to help defend when I rushed in? This is the second threat provided by Luka's personal abilities in addition to tactics;

and if it fails at this step. Enter the third level of design immediately - it is not a delicate design, because the ability of these teammates is often a waste of drawing tactics - so you should try to return the ball to Luca;

At this point, there is not much time left for offense - Luca, if you can pull it, just pull it, don't be lucky, save your energy to play the next round.

Very simple and straightforward idea.

But all the secrets of Slovenia's second-place average score in the European Championship this time, as well as the secret of Luka Doncic's strongest year in his career averaging 36 points per game - basically all in this round.

What is this called?

"The top ingredients only require the simplest way of cooking"...

And don't underestimate all this - maybe in the NBA, some of the ideas here are worth learning from for the Lakers in the new season.