Playing Pickleball Every Day Turned Luka Doncic Into A $165 Million Extension Man, So Just Think About What It Can Do For You
Carlin Stiehl. Getty Images.The great thing about Luka has always been that he looked like a regular ol' guy out there taking runs at an open gym. Sure, he has some insane talent that only a handful of humans on planet Earth possess. But just the overall look of him seemed to be a guy who gets a chance to ball once or twice per week, and that's the extent of his exercise. He's sneaking an extra slice of pizza for lunch. He's ordering another drink at dinner. He's hitting the freezer at 1am for a quick bite of ice cream, and making sure to take one last bite while he's putting it back into the freezer. He wasn't fat, but he just didn't look like the guy who was meal prepping and getting multiple workouts in per day.
Which seemed to be one of the main reasons he was shipped out of Dallas to LA. The Mavs didn't trust his ability to get his body right. I'm sure there were some folks with the Lakers who were worried about it, too, before signing him to one of the biggest contract extensions in the league. If Luka Doncic wanted to get paid, he needed to get trim.
Enter pickleball.
Men's Health -- This summer, Team Luka’s had three full months to rebuild Dončić. So they dared to eliminate court time—and he disagreed at first. But he quickly filled the time with a weights routine that helped him build total-body strength. And he eventually found a distraction playing pickleball and padel (think: pickleball meets squash), sometimes against friends, sometimes with Barrio and Maček. For Dončić, the new games were a blast from his childhood past, long before he fell in love with basketball. They challenged new muscles, relieving his knees, thanks to fewer vertical jumps, while strengthening adductors, glutes, and ankles with footwork. “At the beginning, it was hard,” he says. “I can’t be without basketball. But when I was a little kid, I played a lot of sports.” He channeled that era—and maintained his competitive fire. “There were a lot of angry moments, too, when we would lose,” he says. “But I didn’t lose much.”
So let's just get this straight real quick. Luka needed to rebuild his body. His team got him to play a shit ton of pickleball. It ended up helping out his footwork and ankles. It took stress off of his knees. He shredded a bunch of weight. And now he signed a 3-year, $165 million contract extension. Clearly the two are related.
ESPN -- In Monday's issue of Men's Health, Doncic also detailed the major changes to his body and conditioning. Doncic's ability to maintain his body was a sticking point while with the Mavericks, and Lakers coach JJ Redick made a point of saying in his final meeting with the media that players needed to "get in championship shape."
So that's the moral of the story. If you want to get into great shape, amass generational wealth, and have a blast while doing so? Then play as much pickleball as humanly possible. Your body and bank account will forever be grateful.
The only thing I'd be worried about here for the Lakers is Luka eventually becoming so obsessed with pickleball that it takes him away from the basketball court. It's a dangerously addicting game, and it seems like there's always a group of 3 who are looking for a 4th player to go out and play. The better Luka gets at pickleball, the more difficult it's going to be for him to turn down those invites.