Ahead of the Texas derby between the Mavericks and Spurs, a reporter asked Gregg Popovich what he thought of Luka Doncic, and the Texan technician left in a tribute to basketball from the former Yugoslavia.
You know, when I think about it, and I don’t want to hold you back too long, but I always think to myself: imagine all of Yugoslavia being together and all these guys being on one team. That’s exciting. I mean, you know, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Bosnia and Herzegovina, everyone. It would be so cool.
And, you know, Luka is someone who always reminds me of that or when another player from that region pops up and gets great too. Looks like there aren’t any average players when they come into the league. If they get into the league, they’re great. It takes me back to the days of [Vlade] Divac and [Zarko] Paspalj et [Toni] Kukoc et [Drazen] Petrovic and all the guys playing together at the same time. A bit like the Argentines of a few years ago.
This is the first thought that occurs to me. And then the second thought is, I wonder, ‘How the hell did you manage to be so good coming from a small country?’ And I know you weren’t going to the playgrounds, like in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. Not with the same competition, maybe they played every day, but they probably didn’t have opponents of that level. We must therefore give them credit, which American pride often refuses, and to the programs they have. Coaching. At their level of play, and what their coaches have to go through to become coaches. To the players, to their discipline, to the time they spend training, to the intensity of their training, to their seriousness.
It’s huge. And they are very good. So you have to give them a lot of credit. And then you know, for some reason there seems to be a natural predisposition for sports. They also have a great handball team. It’s kind of basketball related, and Luka probably never played handball, but it’s the same kind of game. So it’s very interesting and wonderful to watch.
On a personal level, he really enjoys playing, and I love his emotions. You know, sometimes he gets frustrated and he gets angry. Sometimes he laughs out loud or takes pleasure in delivering an assist or planting a 3-point shot to your head. And he’s just fun, he’s fun. Besides being an incredible player.
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