The summer of 2021 will forever be etched in our fan memories. Why ? Because the flirtation between July and August will have offered us almost at the same time the NBA Finals, the Free Agency, the Olympic Games, the Draft and the Summer League. Are you serious? Oh yeah. The scars of this crazy period are still there, a year later, so much so that we decided, over a few days, to remind you of some of these still present memories. 2021 intravenously. Today ? We come back to this fantastic start to the morning, during which Luka Doncic categorically refused to allow us to take a one-hour nap.
Coincidence of the calendar or rather the time difference, it is at 6am that this Slovenia – Argentina begins, and at the same time the first Olympic match of the career of Luka Doncic, when his opponent Luis Scola was already present at the Games of around 1938. Double event, because if the basketball planet is obviously expecting a festival of the Slovenian prodigy, we also celebrate our 86th consecutive hour without sleepwhen we tell you that this summer was special it’s not a joke.
Very quickly the regret of not sleeping is no longer, because barely back in his competition Luka is doing Luka. Not content to have bled the NBA for his first three seasons and to have carried his country almost alone during the Olympic Qualification Tournament a few days earlier, the leader of the Mavs and the Slovenian selection takes up the problem (the JO) head-on and slammed four huge shots from the parking lot at the start of the match. A few text messages go out, “no, I swear I’m not sleeping”, something is happening. 17 pawns after a quarter, 31 at half-time, we are talking about a FIBA match, at the Olympic Games, therefore the highest level in the world, and the crack therefore drops us a sheet of stats worthy of NBA 2K. Very quickly the mouths are speechless, very quickly the debates center around the question of the records to be sought, because on the scoreboard Facundo Campagnole, Gabriel Berk and Luis Scolaire are in the cabbages and have already lost match.
Luka Doncic has fun depriving us of sleep but not of a smile, and after sitting on the bench for a few minutes his coach gives in to the sirens by sending him back to the field although the match had been won for a while by his team. Even if it means winning as much as having the game sheet signed by the Guinness World Records, and if the 55 points of the Brazilian legend Brandao Oscar Schmidt will not be reached, it is a second all-time place that Lulu will seek from her first Olympic strides.
???? They scored the most points in the #Olympic Games…
????. ???????? Oscar Schmidt – ???????? (1988)
????. ???????? Eddie Palubinskas – ???????? (1976)
????. ???????? ???????????????? ???????????????????????? – ???????? (????????????????) ???????? LUKA. DONCIC. ????#Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/SiFsGQNJ6A
— NBA Stats France ???????? (@nbastatsfrance) July 26, 2021
48 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks. In 31 minutes, for his first time at the Games and against the reigning vice-world champions. Luka Doncic has no time, his mind is elsewhere, the kid’s tournament – in its entirety – will be nothing but delight and Slovenia will play their role as a scarecrow to perfection… before a certain Nicolas Batum appears, but that is yet another story.
