Dirk Nowitzki recently admitted that he wasn’t so sure about Luka Doncic at the beginning. Talent of course, everyone saw that when the Slovenian basketball player served the Dallas Mavericks at the age of 19. But what position should he play exactly? And didn’t he seem a bit clumsy? Would he be fast, tough, strong enough for the NBA?
Nowitzki, living legend of the Texan club, started his final season for the Mavericks those summer days of 2018, and he decided to give Dončić one of those typical veteran rehearsals in training.
“I fouled him hard, sent him to the free-throw line and started the trash talk,” Nowitzki said on the podcast “The Ringer”. Nowitzki let him know that he, the youngster, would never transform these two litters. And the? “Just smiled at me and didn’t say anything. And converted the two free throws. “
“Right now he’s better than I was at my best moment – and the unbelievable thing is that he’s only 22 years old.”
Dirk Nowitzki on Luca Dončić
Three years later, Nowitzki, who is considered the best European in NBA history, no longer has any doubts about Dončić: “He’s currently better than I was at my best moment – and the unbelievable thing is that he’s only 22 years old. «
Nowitzki’s German compatriots will have to grapple with this Dončić tonight (3 a.m.CET) in the Olympic quarter-finals. With him and his Slovenes, who are rated by the experts as one of the gold favorites. Because of Dončić, but also because of the interaction between him and a team that he uses perfectly. There has never been anything to win in international basketball alone.
In the last group game against Spain, this interaction was evident. It was about avoiding the USA as opponents in the quarter-finals, and Spain’s coach Sergio Scariolo, the shrewd coach of the best European Olympic team in the last few editions (silver 2008 and 2012, bronze 2016) had of course done what his German colleague Henrik Rödl will be working on in these hours : He had come up with an anti-Dončić plan.
The strategy with the Forward Víctor Claver as an annoying special agent in a double and triple protection seemed to work. After a few minutes Dončić was already on three fouls. He had to hold back in defense and attack the front almost disembodied. So he only scored with three-pointers or free throws throughout the game. When it was over, the man who had single-handedly cleared Argentina with 48 points stood at just twelve points.
That was one side. On the other, Slovenia had won anyway (95:87). And Dončić was only one assist away from doing the third “triple-double” at the Olympics after Alexander Belov (1976) and LeBron James (2012). The statistical category describes double-digit yields for points, templates and rebounds. It is considered a premium pass for a versatile basketball player. And it is Dončić’s specialty. In the NBA, among other things, he is the youngest player in history to have achieved a triple double with at least 30 points, or the only one to have achieved two of these hat tricks before his 20th birthday.
With Dončić, Slovenia have never lost a game
But what makes him really complete is his game intelligence. Against Spain he did what was still possible with his foul burden and rose to the role of director. The intimidation effect was basically the same and the free spaces were used by players like Vlatko Čančar (22 points), Klemen Prepelič (15) and Mike Tobey (16). “What blows me most about him are not his numbers,” Scariolo said after the defeat. “But the impression that you seem unbeatable with him.”
Dončić played 16 times with Slovenia and never lost
Photo: ARIS MESSINIS / AFP
There is a devastating statistic for this observation, against which Germany is playing today: Slovenia has never lost a game with Dončić.
The series may “only” consist of 16 games, but it includes the 2017 European Championship, when Slovenia became European champions for the first time and Dončić landed in the tournament’s all-star quintet at the age of 18. Or that of the Olympic qualification in June. Unlike many NBA stars – such as the notoriously unsuccessful new NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo with Greece – Dončić has no problems adapting to international basketball; he knows him from his time at Real Madrid, where he built the perfect intermediate step between Ljubljana and North America and won the Euroliga in 2018. Of course, he was named the best player of the European season at the time, and of course that made him the youngest ever.
Father basketball player, mother dancer
The fact that Nowitzki couldn’t locate him so clearly at first is simply because he can play pretty much anything – except maybe center. Father Saša, himself a professional basketball player, defined him as a mélange of Toni Kukoč, Dejan Bodiroga, Dražen Petrović and Miloš Teodosić: a who’s who of (ex-) Yugoslav basketball. Some people may also recognize the mother in Dončić’s elegant movements: Mirjam Poterbin was a dancer.
“He’s a cross between Magic (Johnson) and (Larry) Bird.”
Donnie Nelson, former manager of the Dallas Mavericks, on Dončić
Her son, advised by his father, moved to Madrid at the age of 13 and immediately played at least one age group higher there. One of the early observers was Donnie Nelson, the recently retired manager of the Mavericks, who had already discovered Nowitzki for the NBA. In Dončić, he saw the potential for a gifted player-maker, a “cross between Magic (Johnson) and (Larry) Bird,” said Nelson recently, even in his first professional games. “That was the first thing I noticed. That, and that it would be a triple-doubles machine. “
That leaves the matter of the character that Nowitzki tested at the time. Even in Madrid he naturally saw himself as a leader. Otherwise he appeared there with a boyish charm that you can still see sometimes today. But there are also initial stories from Dallas about internal tensions, and at the Olympics, too, his low tolerance for frustration towards the referees is unmistakable.
Dončić is a furious competitor and he is impatient. He wants to win. And he also knows what: of course both the NBA and the Olympics. But what if he had to choose a competition? When asked, he was not at a loss for an answer: “I would say: the gold medal.”
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