Luka Doncic Owes His New Weight Loss To Pickleball?

Luka Doncic is a new Lakers man, not only did he slim down into championship shape but he also signed a $165 million extension. And it sounds like he owes it all to pickleball...

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Men's Health -- This summer, Team Luka’s had three full months to rebuild Doncic. 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 Macek. For Doncic, 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.”

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(Barstool Sports)