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Luka Doncic Did the Worst Thing Possible, He Legitimized Pickleball
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There’s a Men’s Health article from July 28th that’s starting to make the rounds this week. It’s written by strength and conditioning specialists Andrew Heffernan and Ebenezer Samuel and titled “Luka Dončić 2.0 Has Entered the Chat.“
The CliffsNotes is that Luka lost some weight after looking more like John Kruk and less like a basketball player over his first seven NBA seasons. The story details what he’s done to shed pounds and build muscle, talking about workout and diet specifics, among other things.
Then, towards the end of the story, this paragraph hits (my emphasis in bold) –
“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 (his trainer and physiotherapist). 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.”
Yeah look, when you add pickleball as a supplement of sorts, it makes sense. Less stress on Luka’s knees because you barely move. You just stand there at the net playing glorified ping pong. It’s like Patrick Rafter’s serve-and-volley without the serve.
Some people are taking this and using it as pickleball propaganda. They’re weaponizing this information to talk about how great pickle is, among the perpetrators Jordie over at Barstool:
“Just think about what it can do for you.”
What it can do for you is make you lazy. You’re in your 30s and your knees and joints are still in great shape, yet you’re out there wasting your time playing pickleball. You could be playing basketball, or flag football. Hell, I played a flag game up in Warrington a few weeks ago and a 72-year-old was out there with us. 72! You think Jimmy was wasting his youth playing pickleball? Hell nah. He can play pickle in his 80s.
Let’s go back to the Pulitzer Prize-winning blog from 2022, titled “Opinion: You’re Too Young to be Playing Pickleball” –
“I can’t speak for the female population, but it seems like a lot of men become dads in their early to mid-thirties, gain their 10-15 pounds, and just give up on team sports entirely. Dad bod, which is supposed to be temporary, ends up becoming permanent. And people who should be capable of still playing flag, basketball, volleyball, soccer, etc – they instead come out of dad mode with golf clubs and a paddle, and they’re never the same. Put that shit down. You can turn to the low-intensity sports when you hit 40. Throw your kid in the carrier and go hiking. Ask your wife to watch the baby so you can play pickup. Strap the toddler into the bike trailer and hit the park. Figure it out. Stop being a bum.”
The pickleball politburo makes me sick.
EDIT – several readers make a good point: what was the pickle/padel split here? padel seems legit, but pickle is not. hopefully it was 99% padel and 1% pickle
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com