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Speaker 1: The volume. All right, well to Hohop said, I here

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Speaker 1: at the volume. I hope all you guys are having

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Speaker 1: a great week so far. We want to dig a

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Speaker 1: little bit into the Luka Doncic extension. Today it's being

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Speaker 1: widely reported that Luca is about to sign a extension.

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Speaker 1: I want to dig into that some of the specifics

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Speaker 1: of him kind of taking a bet on the Lakers

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Speaker 1: and why I think he's making that bet. And then

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Speaker 1: after that, there was a Men's Health article that released

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Speaker 1: earlier where Luca was shown in pictures looking very very good.

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Speaker 1: Look he was in great shape, like he had trimmed

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Speaker 1: a considerable amount of body fat, that he'd put on

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Speaker 1: a good amount of muscle. A lot of interesting details

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Speaker 1: about the specific ways that he went about fixing or

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Speaker 1: kind of curating a better body for the NBA season.

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Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that in some of the

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Speaker 1: things that I expect from Luka Doncic this season. You

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Speaker 1: guys are the drill for We started subscribe to hoops

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Speaker 1: in O YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of

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Speaker 1: our videos. Follow me on Twitter, underscore JCNLT so you

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Speaker 1: guys don't miss show announcement. Some forget about our podcast

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Speaker 1: feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's

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Speaker 1: also super helpful if you leave a rating and a

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Speaker 1: review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our

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Speaker 1: social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Make

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Speaker 1: sure you guys follow us there. The last, but not least,

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Speaker 1: keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We're doing

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Speaker 1: a lot of mail bags geared around the player rankings list.

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Speaker 1: If you have anything that you disagree with on the

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Speaker 1: player rankings list, drop those questions in the comments and

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Speaker 1: we'll get to him in our mail bags throughout the

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Speaker 1: remainder of the summer. All right, let's talk some basketball

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Speaker 1: so again. It's being widely reported that Luca is about

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Speaker 1: to sign a four year, two hundred and twenty nine

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Speaker 1: million dollar extension with the Lakers. We also saw the

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Speaker 1: release of a piece in Men's Health magazine about Luca's

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Speaker 1: offseason regimen, just how in shape he has become in

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Speaker 1: the early part of the NBA off season. We're going

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Speaker 1: to take some time to hit both of those. Let's

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Speaker 1: start with a new deal. This was a remarkable vote

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Speaker 1: of condence that Luka Doncic has placed in the Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles Lakers. To put it nicely, the Lakers' front office

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Speaker 1: and ownership group have failed to demonstrate any sort of

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Speaker 1: coherent basketball philosophy since Jerry Buss passed away. To put

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Speaker 1: it less nicely, they have grossly underachieved in the Lebron

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Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis era. And that's saying something considering they

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Speaker 1: literally won a championship. But outside of that one championship season,

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Speaker 1: it's been a shit show of self sabotage, a gross

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Speaker 1: undervaluing of role player talent, a mismanaging of assets both

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Speaker 1: picks and players, and allowed a team that had two

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Speaker 1: clear cut top ten players to go four of the

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Speaker 1: following five seasons after the championship without a single playoff

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Speaker 1: series victory. Four of the five seasons after they won

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Speaker 1: the title have not done anything to deserve this type

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Speaker 1: of vote of confidence from Luka Doncic. So the question

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Speaker 1: is why did Luca choose to lock in with Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles anyway? I think it's a combination of three factors.

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Speaker 1: First of all, Luca seems like many of the European

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Speaker 1: players out there to be fiercely loyal to those who

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Speaker 1: are loyal to him. I'm not sure that he'll ever

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Speaker 1: demand a trade in his career, or ever even leave

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles unless they were literally unwilling to keep him,

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Speaker 1: like if they wanted to trade him, or if they

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Speaker 1: refuse to give him another deal. I think those would

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Speaker 1: be the only scenarios where he would leave Los Angeles. Secondly,

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Speaker 1: the Lakers brand is frankly just so strong that it

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Speaker 1: can overcome a good amount of the weaknesses in the Lakers'

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Speaker 1: leadership corps. And Thirdly, the new ownership group will likely

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Speaker 1: dramatically increase the financial capabilities of the franchise and will hopefully,

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Speaker 1: over the coming years, get rid of much of that parochial,

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Speaker 1: foolish family style business practice that the Lakers have engaged

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Speaker 1: in and that has plagued the team in previous years.

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Speaker 1: In other words, I think Luca is a fiercely loyal

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Speaker 1: guy who is making a bet that the new Lakers

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Speaker 1: under new ownership will be better than the Lakers of old,

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Speaker 1: and I do think he's making the right bet there.

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Speaker 1: I was just surprised he decided to commit so soon.

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Speaker 1: But the upside for him is obviously he gets financial security,

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Speaker 1: and the upside for the Lakers is that they can

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Speaker 1: firmly build a plan based on a long term commitment

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Speaker 1: from Luca, which brings me to the men's health article.

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Speaker 1: There were a lot of interesting elements that I want

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Speaker 1: see dkang dot co slash audio. First of all, it

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Speaker 1: just made me very excited. I'm not treading any exclusive

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Speaker 1: ground here. I'm not the only guy who's been saying this,

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Speaker 1: but I've been preaching about Lucas conditioning for years, specifically

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Speaker 1: because I knew he was leaving legitimate meat on the

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Speaker 1: bone and who he was as a basketball player, And

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to see him reaches of individual ceiling.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to see what it looked like, and I

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Speaker 1: think there's a good chance that in this coming season

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Speaker 1: we see far and away the best version of Luca

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Speaker 1: that we've ever seen. Secondly, some of the specifics I

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Speaker 1: wanted to get into from the article getting right in

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Speaker 1: the kitchen, Luca's basically doing intermittent fasting. He doesn't eat

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Speaker 1: after eight thirty PM, and he doesn't have his first

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Speaker 1: meal the following day until he's finished his morning workout.

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Speaker 1: So he's going like twelve hour chunks every day where

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Speaker 1: he's not eating, and then he's massively protein loading in

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Speaker 1: the windows of time when he is eating. He's having

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Speaker 1: over two hundred and fifty grams of protein per day.

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Speaker 1: According to the article that we all got to read,

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Speaker 1: this area the kitchen is where the damage is done

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Speaker 1: for every human, let alone professional athletes that are struggling

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Speaker 1: to keep the weight off. It is so easy to

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Speaker 1: pile extra calories in your diet, whether it be from

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Speaker 1: snacking or from drinking alcohol or anything along those lines.

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Speaker 1: Like I recently was having some issues with my weight.

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Speaker 1: When I was playing basketball in college, I was typically

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Speaker 1: between two twenty and two twenty five, and then in

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Speaker 1: my post college time plane, I've been able to kind

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Speaker 1: of keep it around two twenty five to two thirds.

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Speaker 1: But I had a stretch recently where like I was

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Speaker 1: consistently between two thirty five and two forty. I was

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Speaker 1: too heavy, and like there was a play in a

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Speaker 1: mensley game a few weeks back where someone threw me

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Speaker 1: a lob on a back door cut, a play that

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Speaker 1: I used to dunk every single time, sometimes dunk reverse

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Speaker 1: two hands over my head, and I like couldn't get

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Speaker 1: it over the rim, and I was like, God, damn it,

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Speaker 1: I'm legitimately like just playing with a big weight jacket

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Speaker 1: on right. And I had no one to blame but

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Speaker 1: myself because I had some really bad snacking habits during

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Speaker 1: that phase. I was just like I would consume an

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Speaker 1: extra like six or seven thousand calories a week in

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Speaker 1: just doing a ton of snacking before bed. It's just stupid.

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Speaker 1: It was like I was putting myself in a position

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Speaker 1: where it didn't matter how many times I was working out.

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Speaker 1: I was going f forty five four or five times

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Speaker 1: a week. I was playing pick up four or five

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Speaker 1: times a week. I was doing shooting workouts didn't matter

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Speaker 1: because I was just consuming all these completely unnecessary calories.

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Speaker 1: I moved up to Denver with my wife last week,

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Speaker 1: and as part of the move, we cut out our

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Speaker 1: nighttime snack and I dropped all of that weight immediately

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Speaker 1: and came back at Like when I got back to

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Speaker 1: Tucson the other day, I was like two twenty nine

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Speaker 1: after being consistently two thirty seven two thirty eight for

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Speaker 1: a long time. The point is, the kitchen is where

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Speaker 1: the damage is done. I've seen people go like, I've

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Speaker 1: seen people with that forty five where they're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I've done that forty five and I don't feel like

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Speaker 1: I'm seeing any change in my body, and it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: what are you doing in the kitchen? Like that, That's

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Speaker 1: really where the damage is done when it comes to

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Speaker 1: your ability to maintain your weight. I just thought it it.

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Speaker 1: It was just really fascinating for me to read that

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Speaker 1: in that article, and it just makes a ton of

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Speaker 1: sense to me that Luca's journey to better conditioning and

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Speaker 1: better fitness started in the kitchen. And then, thirdly, how

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Speaker 1: will Luca look differently as a basketball player this year

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Speaker 1: if the story is true? And he is in the far,

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Speaker 1: in far and away the best shape that he's ever

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Speaker 1: been in his life. The biggest thing will be his

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Speaker 1: overall durability. The on court stuff will be like a

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Speaker 1: mixed bag. I want to get into that in a minute.

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Speaker 1: There's gonna be certain things that I think will look different,

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Speaker 1: certain things that I think will look the same, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of it depends on his strength training, so

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Speaker 1: we'll get into in a minute. But I think by

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Speaker 1: far the biggest thing we'll see with Luca is just

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Speaker 1: him being more durable. I talked about this with Jamal Murray.

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Speaker 1: When you come into the season out of shape and

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Speaker 1: you play your way into shape, you pick up all

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Speaker 1: these like little nagging injuries and bits of inflammation that

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Speaker 1: become a problem down the line, even when you do

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Speaker 1: drop the weight. And in each of the last two

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Speaker 1: postseason runs, Luca went in kind of limping with a

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Speaker 1: bulky knee. But a big part of that is he's

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Speaker 1: playing with all of this extra weight, which means extra

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Speaker 1: wear and tear, and that accumulates over the course of

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Speaker 1: the season. I think we're gonna see Luca if he

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Speaker 1: comes into camp in great shape, just simply be able

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Speaker 1: to avoid more of the nagging injuries. There are certain

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Speaker 1: things that are out of his control. If he has

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Speaker 1: an ankle sprain, then you know, that doesn't matter how

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Speaker 1: good a shape you're in. An ankle sprain's an ankle sprain,

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Speaker 1: right Like, if he you know, has some sort of

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Speaker 1: injury that's related to contact's that sort of thing is

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Speaker 1: out of his control. But I think we're gonna see

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Speaker 1: fewer of the soft tissue kind of like limpy, gimpy

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Speaker 1: type of stuff that we saw with Luke over the

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Speaker 1: last couple of years, just simply because he's in better

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Speaker 1: shape and is better equipped to handle the grind of

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Speaker 1: the NBA season now on court, Like I said, it's

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Speaker 1: gonna be a little bit of a mixed bag. In

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Speaker 1: my opinion, I think Luca's immense size was a tool

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Speaker 1: for him sometimes specifically against thinner defenders. So if he

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Speaker 1: drops too much weight, I could see him struggling more

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Speaker 1: against some of the Jaden McDaniels types of defenders out there.

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Speaker 1: They're really lanky defenders. So I'm not saying that's going

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Speaker 1: to happen. I'm just saying a big thing that I'll

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Speaker 1: be looking for with him is how much of his

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Speaker 1: weight is he replacing with functional muscle mass, Because if

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Speaker 1: he's only like ten pounds lighter, but he's in incredibly

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Speaker 1: good physical shape and he's carrying a bunch of extra

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Speaker 1: muscle mass, he'll be bullying people more, not less. But

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Speaker 1: if he comes in super skinny, he'll be quicker, obviously,

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Speaker 1: but then he'll have some issues with certain types of

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Speaker 1: physical defenders. Either way, though he should be quicker. A

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Speaker 1: quicker Luka Doncica should lead to several immediate positive impacts.

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Speaker 1: The big one I was thinking about was his ability

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Speaker 1: to dance on the perimeter with slower players like centers.

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Speaker 1: Isolating centers and switches is a huge part of the

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Speaker 1: way Luca plays offense. He should be profoundly more effective

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Speaker 1: attacking bigs and switches than what he was like when

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Speaker 1: he was a bigger like a bigger, tubbier guy. That

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Speaker 1: should make him a better offensive player. He should be

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Speaker 1: able to turn drives and gaps that he hits into,

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Speaker 1: more attempts right at the rim, more dunks, more layups.

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Speaker 1: On defense, he should be far more capable of sliding

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Speaker 1: his feet laterally keeping drivers in front. He's coming off

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Speaker 1: of two consecutive playoff series where that was a massive

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Speaker 1: problem for him. So hopefully he can turn that improved

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Speaker 1: quickness into being a more staunch perimeter defender. Again, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna keep my eye on his strength. I want to

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Speaker 1: see how strong he is when he comes in. I

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Speaker 1: would imagine he'll come in strong, not just smaller. And

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Speaker 1: that and again, turning useless weight into functional weight serves

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Speaker 1: no purpose other than to make him a much better

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Speaker 1: basketball player. That is, that is the goal of all

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Speaker 1: of this. If he drops weight without replacing it with

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Speaker 1: functional muscle mass, then he's just made himself smaller, right,

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Speaker 1: That's That's one of the things that I'm gonna be

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Speaker 1: curious to see. The bottom line is this, this whole

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Speaker 1: endeavor could be the difference between Luca being just another

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Speaker 1: superstar in this league and maybe the only guy in

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Speaker 1: the NBA who's capable of giving Nikole Yokich a run

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Speaker 1: for his money. I think he's the only guy who

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Speaker 1: has the ability to do that this season. I don't

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Speaker 1: think Shae Yiojas Alexander has that ability. I don't think

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Speaker 1: Jannison Tenakumpo has that ability. I think we're a year

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Speaker 1: or two away from Wemby or Anthony Edwards making any

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Speaker 1: real headway on the top tier. Luca is genuinely capable

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Speaker 1: of unseating Yokic. That doesn't mean he will, but he's

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Speaker 1: definitely capable. But in order to get to that point,

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Speaker 1: he has to be in peak physical condition, and it

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Speaker 1: looks as though he's finally taking the necessary steps to

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Speaker 1: get into that direction. I'm very excited about it, and

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Speaker 1: it will definitely be covering EuroBasket later this summer. Just

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Speaker 1: becau as an opportunity to see how Luca looks. That's

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Speaker 1: in late August. I'm very excited about that specifically, and

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Speaker 1: I should be in town for that. But again, when

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Speaker 1: I saw that article this morning, I was like, man like,

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Speaker 1: Luca's ahead of schedule and he's got months still to

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Speaker 1: get ready for the season. I'm super excited to see

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Speaker 1: what Apex Luca looks like. All right, guys, It's all

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Speaker 1: I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you

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Speaker 1: guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will

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Speaker 1: be back later in the next couple of days with

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Speaker 1: more player rankings. I will see you guys, though,