When Luka Doncic plays for the national team, Slovenia is unbeaten: 16-0 in international competitions. He was a teenager in the squad that won the European championship in 2017 led by the MVP Goran Dragic. A victory that remains, for now, the greatest result in the history of Slovenian basketball. Dragic said at the end of the tournament that Doncic would be an NBA “superstar”.
Slovenia is also unbeaten in Tokyo, yet Luka has lost one. He was looking for tickets to see Djokovic, but was denied them for the health safety reasons we all know. He saw it on television.
Another major event is coming on Tuesday, which is the men’s basketball quarter-finals at the Tokyo Games. Doncic won’t have tickets for those, but he won’t need them either. He will be on the pitch when Slovenia take on Germany for a spot on the medal table, a step that would put his basketball-mad homeland even further on the map of the sport and potentially send his title to climb even higher.
The coach of Slovenia Aleksander Sekulic was self-evident: “We obviously have the best player in the world.” Here are the figures of the Olympics: first in the score, with 28.3 points per game. 6.0 points ahead of the Japanese Rui Hachimura. Second in rebound at 10.7 per game, behind only Slovenian teammate Mike Tobey 13 per game. Third for assists with 7.0 per game; behind Tomas Satoransky of the Czech Republic, who averaged 8.7, and Spaniard Ricky Rubio with an average of 7.3.
No one in this men’s tournament has suffered more fouls, by a wide margin, than Doncic. He shares the lead in blocks, he is shooting a fantastic 75% from 2 points, he is one of five players in the Olympics with at least 10 successful 3-point baskets so far. He had a 48-point Olympic debut, equaling him for the second-highest-scoring game in Olympic history, and was one assist on Sunday against Spain since achieving what would be his third triple-double ever in a match.
No male player has ever finished an Olympics by averaging Doncic’s current numbers. And no one has averaged 28.3 points in an Olympics since the Brazilian Oscar Schmidt – the Olympic standard for nearly all men’s scores – he averaged 42.3 per game in Seoul in 1988.
The Slovenian leadership did the rest, putting a band of quality shooters alongside him and replacing the injured Randolph with a Mike Tobey, from Virginia, perfect big man. “Playing with him is just great,” Tobey said. “He is so talented. In this type of basketball, perhaps in any type of basketball, he is the best in the world. “
The talent of the Americans, starting with Kevin Durant, is not in question. However at this moment Doncic, who grew up at the international school, is a palm above. He knows the nuances. He is used to playing with a ball that differs from the feel and bounce of the NBA ball. For him, the transition between playing for Dallas and playing for his country was seamless. Not all Tokyo NBA champions can say the same.
“I am happy to be able to watch and play with him,” said the Slovenian guard Zoran Dragic, brother of Goran Dragic. “He’s a great guy and it’s so easy to play with him, because he’s just an amazing person and a basketball player. Yes, we can all be happy that he is Slovenian. “
