Luka Dončić has three dogs: Hugo, Gia and Viki. The trio has their own Instagram account, on which they were lounging on an Alpine meadow in the mountains above the cloud line, or wearing adorable little Dončić jerseys, or sitting on what looks like a private jet. They vary in size – Hugo is a small fawn pomerane, Gia a Swiss white hirsute and viki shepherd a large silver mixed race, but, like their owner, they are uniformly soft and with bright eyes. Shortly after the Jordan brand, a Nike line, launched the Luka 1, the first signature shoe of Dončić, a “Dog Dad” color: white with pale bulbous rocks and the imprints of Hugo, Gia and Viki inked on the saddle. It struck me as a kind of snapping to those who considered a lazy and sweet don – the shoes of a man who appreciated a good blood to snuggle up with his Pomeranian before dropping a triple -double on the head of his criticism.
I thought of dogs last week, when I saw Dončić on the cover of Men’s healthThe skinny air, buff and bronze, holding a dumbbell at a Jaccoral angle. The images accompanying the article, which detailed the fitness regime of Dončić, were a clear break in the usual images of Dončić smiling, complaining about the referees or huddling a POOFY animal. It was another Luka, a new Luka – one who eats a hideous quantity of protein, who fast before training, and which did not rest between the weight lifting sets. There was not a single puppy in sight.
This kind of article, in which a besieged athlete reports that he is constantly training and shows sinewy triceps and diamond -cut calves, has a long tradition in the sports media. And maybe no one has ever had the configuration for that like him. After Dončić’s shocking trade in Dallas Mavericks at Los Angeles Lakers, the director general of Mavericks, Nico Harrison, suggested that this decision was necessary because Dončić was bad in defense. The “sources” alluded to the concerns about Dončić’s bad conditioning. There were rumors about his “taste for beer and hookah”. It turned out that Harrison was one of those who considered Dončić as lazy and sweet. There was only one way it was going to end: with revenge and a Shake Protein-Reim with almonds.
What strikes in this particular story is how it was executed. His two writers are also fitness coaches. As many readers have noticed, a previous version of the article said that Dončić had a vertical forty-two inch in the 2018 combination, which he did not attend, but who, as Nick Angstadt, the host of the Podcast “Located on Mavericks”, supposed, corresponds to a hallucination in the research characteristic of Google “. (On his website, Men’s health said that his policy is to “never use AI to report or write or verify the facts, although it can be used for research purposes”.) A vertical forty-two inch would have made Dončić one of the best league jumps; The upper vertical to this year’s harvester of this year was forty-three inches. Dončić has only made three dunks in the past two seasons, and none since his exchange with the Lakers. But the error is revealing. There is something disturbing in the report and on the images, which are in high contrast, without a doubt to really show the definition of these new muscles. It is a dispatch from the strange valley.
“Six days a week”, we read in history, “he stifles two protein -rich meals and a protein shake – and he does not have this first meal until he crushed his morning training of 90 minutes.” Excover! Crushed! It does not matter that all this happens in certain establishments of the small picturesque Croatian town where Dončić Summers, which, apparently, had never seen a bar until Dončić has “truck” weights, or that, given his resources, these protein -rich dishes are probably quite delicious. The point is framing, narrative control.
It is logical that history landed just when Dončić launched an American tour for his sneaker, which ends in Los Angeles, just as he became eligible to sign a giant contract extension with the Lakers. (He signed a three -year extension, one hundred and fifty -five million dollars on Saturday.) Fleeing lean – “Lean as Heck” – only concerns basketball. It is also a brand management exercise. “Just visually, I would say that my whole body looks better,” he said Men’s health. He is not wrong. His jaw is defined by more than a narrow croque beard now. During his trip to New York last week, when he was promoting his shoe – precipitating photos with children, appearing in the show “Today”, commercial equipment with the Yankees star, judge Aaron – he looked like Svelte. He looked like a professional athlete.
And professional athletes are supposed to sacrifice and suffer. They are supposed to be machines. The article was clear on the motivations behind this – to convince the “hateful” (the mavericks) that they were wrong to doubt their star. In the story of the article, however, it was not only a body of revenge; Dončić was supposed to be on this trajectory even before his exchange, and had “quietly built a team of fitness several years ago to help improve their natural (very dangerous) gifts”. The whole thing was also clearly intended to convince the fans, because Dončić signed a large contract extension with Los Angeles, that it is worth cargoes of money, that the Lakers buy the new model.
The story was inevitable, from the moment he left Dallas, if not before that. There is no doubt that Dončić needed to get in shape to play the best of his best playoffs, or simply to avoid injuries. It doesn’t make me less sad. Part of the pleasure of seeing him dominate is the way he questions the usual conception of this better It looks like. Sometimes it looks slow. It may seem a little messy. Sometimes it’s ridiculous. But there has always been a playful in Dončić, an awareness of pleasure, even in his most petulant moments. The descriptions of Luka 2.0 make him look like the human equivalent of Soylent. I miss the photos of her dogs. ♦
