Episode Details

Lakers fans knew when they acquired him that Luka Dončić has a rep for complaining to/at/around the officials. A simple YouTube search yields a treasure trove of clips of Luka laying into the refs, cursing at them in multiple languages, throwing his hands around and more. 

Now, Dončić is hardly the first superstar to make a habit of carping on the shortcomings of officials—it's hard to find an elite player who doesn't—but even with that caveat Luka is still considered a top-tier kvetcher, to the point that many (including his former employers in Dallas) believe it has a genuinely negative impact on his play. For the Lakers, there have been a few times where it's clearly had an effect, including during Monday's loss to the Nets in Brooklyn. 

The bigger question is what to do about it, if anything. 

There is no question, it could benefit Dončić not whine as much. Not only does it take him out of plays too frequently, it doesn't exactly endear him to referees, who eventually just tune him out (if he's lucky) or T him up (if he's not). And like many teams, the Lakers, who already have a tendency to complain too much as a group, take their cues from the guy at the top. Especially while LeBron James is on the shelf, that means Dončić. If he tightened things up, it's likely the rest of the team would, too. 

On the other hand, some of this is just how the guy is wired. He is insanely competitive. His game is arrogant, in the way you want it to be for your superstars. It would be great if Luka bitched less, but what would consciously trying to fix it on the court do to how he plays? Is there a chance trying to moderate that part of his personality while he plays could actually impact other things, negatively? Hard to say. Overall, it's likely something that he'll either start to change as he gets more mature (in the same way the Lakers hope he pays more attention to his fitness). Maybe he will, maybe he won't. 

But no star is perfect. Sometimes if you love 90% of what a guy does, you have to tolerate the 10% you don't. Because it's clearly worth the trade off. 

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky 

SEGMENT 1: Luka complains. A lot. 

SEGMENT 2: The value of Markieff Morris. 

SEGMENT 3: What would happen if Luka moderated it a little? 

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