Los Angeles Lakers fans went at each other following Luka Doncic’s rather poor performance during Thursday’s 126-113 loss to the Golden State Warriors.
Doncic struggled mightily on the offensive end, finishing with 19 points on 6-of-17 shooting. The Slovenian wonderboy also failed to make any of his six shot attempts from deep.
In the aftermath of the defeat, Doncic has received plenty of criticism. Former NBA player Kendrick Perkins even called out the 26-year-old star and mentioned his weight problems. “Luka’s biggest issue has to be addressed in the offseason,” Perkins said on ESPN.
“He’s out of shape. He needs to lose weight… That’s not gonna happen no time soon. It’s a reason that Golden State was searching him out defensively and it’s gonna continue to happen even when they get into the postseason.”
Amid the backlash that Luka Doncic is getting, Lakers fans debated whether or not the criticisms are warranted. A post on Reddit defending Doncic started the conversation, and it’s clear the L.A. faithful are split.
“He had a bad game. We acknowledged it. He acknowledged it. We move on…” a commenter said, downplaying the issue on Doncic’s struggles. A supporter added, “I’m with you. Im so happy we have Luka and we got him for a steal.
He’s coming back from injury and we got him mid season and are still trying to figure it all out. And people are already salty when a game doesn’t go out way? Like [expletive] off. This has been such a fun season to watch especially since Luka. People need to chill out.”
“To me clearly Luka got hurt 2 days ago. He had a cast on his arm doing the interviews. U kinda see it in the game yesterday. He’s not touching the ball as much and not shooting as much,” a supporter theorized. “…Hopefully he learns that he should just choose to sit out on games that he’s not fit to play in.”
A critic, however, said, “It’s not just one bad game.” Another disappointed Reddit user shared, “He stinks defensively. Absolutely garbage and when he is [expletive] offensively, he is a literal liability.” “It’s more than one bad offensive game. His shot has been iffy from the jump…no it doesn’t mean he is trash but it also doesn’t mean that it won’t be remarked upon,” a poster added.
