There was ample evidence that Luka Doncic was the best player available in the run up to the 2018 NBA Draft.
Doncic had led the Slovenian Cinderella gold rush at EuroBasket 2017 and was coming out of a EuroLeague championship with Real Madrid, where he was named MVP of the league and MVP of the Final Four at 18. This website had Doncic as the best prospect in the draft a year before it was held, and he held that position for the entire season. It was a relatively popular opinion, although it became apparent that the NBA’s worst franchises lacked what seemed so obvious.
Doncic would always be a stallion in the NBA. He was just too good at being too young in one of the best leagues in the world not to be. But someone thought it would happen like this This?
This seems to be redefined with every brilliant performance, but here’s the quick version: At 21, in his second season, Doncic has already proven himself to be one of the top five players in the NBA this season. At this point, it’s fair to ask if we’re looking at someone who will eventually become one of the greatest basketball players ever.
Doncic played what was possibly his best NBA game on Saturday night against the top Milwaukee Bucks in the league. Facing the championship’s # 1 defense and next two-time MVP winner Giannis Antetokounmpo, Doncic created the kind of performance that has no parallel: 36 points, 19 assists and 14 rebounds in an overtime 136-132 win.
It was, without hyperbole, one of the best individual performances of the season.
Doncic not only fulfilled his pre-draft hype – he surpassed even the expectations of his biggest supporters by just 131 games in his career. He’s the most dominant player to join the NBA since LeBron James, and he still has so much room to grow from here.
Doncic is the ideal primary initiator for the modern era
Doncic’s draft day doubters all had the same question about how his game would translate into the NBA: Would he be athletic enough to consistently create offense against the biggest and fastest players in the world?
It’s a ridiculous criticism at this point. Doncic has a lot of athleticism, he just isn’t posed as the first Vince Carter. He never needed to be able to dunk from the free throw line to effortlessly shake defenders. See how much separation he has put between himself and Wes Matthews in this pull-up dribble.
With the ball on edge and a supernatural understanding of how to unbalance the defense, Doncic always seems to have the game in the palm of his hand. Combine his ability to score at any time with elite vision, rare passing ability and moxie to believe he can only be limited by his imagination, and you’ve got the recipe for an all-time great.
When the game went into overtime, Doncic delivered a highlight of his career. Trapped by Antetokounmpo and Eric Bledsoe from a pick-and-roll, Doncic threw a pass between the legs of teammate Maxi Kleber for a dunk and his 19th assist of the night:
Doncic looks nothing like the point guards who perfected the position 30 years before his arrival in the league, but he offers the ideal model for how the role will be played going forward. At 6’7 and 230lbs, Doncic is in total control of the game, blessed with size and vision to make any pass, the ability to put pressure on the defense as a scorer and the IQ to consistently make the right decision with the ball in. a split second.
For decades, the big man has always been considered the most valuable piece for any basketball team. Not anymore. The first thing every NBA team needs now is a dynamic offensive starter. Doncic is the model of how the championship will look in the medium and short term future.
Doncic is already one of the best players in the NBA. It will only get better.
Doncic is already one of the best players in the NBA from every point of view. If it’s still not on par with LeBron James and James Harden, it’s already scary for a player who wasn’t legally able to purchase a drink until February.
As dominant as Doncic is, there is still a lot of room for improvement in his game. Start with his three-point shot. Doncic is only hitting 31.6 percent of his three points this year, a below-average number that doesn’t capture the true impact of his shooting. Because Doncic requires so many tries – nine per game – largely with an incredible degree of difficulty, his outside shot forces the defenses to protect the arc, which only opens the rest of his game. It’s a similar idea to what made Harden one of the greatest shooting guards ever. Now imagine Doncic’s impact if he can get his three-point percentage down to 35 or 36 percent, where Harden has sat comfortably throughout his career.
Doncic’s conditioning can also improve. When that happens, his defense will progressively improve, although head coach Rick Carlisle says he’s playing better than ever from that point of view.
There was this strange idea that Doncic is already a finished product that follows him throughout his young career. All it takes is to watch her jump from her rookie season to her sophomore year to see how wrong she is.
It is no small thing for today’s stars – most of whom are on the wrong side of 30 – to say that Doncic will soon be running this championship. Given that Antetokounmpo became the best player in the NBA at just 25, Doncic is right behind him as someone who can be the future face of the NBA.
When the next superstar prospect comes to the draft – whether it’s recruiting Cade Cunningham entering the state of Oklahoma or those following him – the evaluators will ask different questions than Doncic faced. Mainly: Can this player be the next Luka?
