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Great, historic start to his career. A few red flags are his conditioning, his defense and his constant whining (I know, for some not a big deal)

Where do you think he ends his career, now that we have a 4 year sample?

I doubt his ability to win in Dallas, both due to his style, conditioning, defense and the team around him. But, he's still young so there's plenty of time. I have him ending up with KD, in the top 20 and MAYBE sneaking into the Kobe range

top 20. Prepping for a bad Injury situation and the lack of minutes compared to other ATGs.

just far too soon to say. All we can say for sure is he started very young, and has a first 4 years that stack up quite favorably against all but a handful of players. But we don't know if or how he will build on that or sustain it. We don't know if Dallas builds a winner around him or he has to leave to have a chance to compete for titles or if he will ever be able to have a team around him capable of contending for the titles required to enter the upper echelon of players.

If I were to just recklessly speculate, which can be fun for sure, but I want to be clear that's all I'm doing here, I'd suggest a top 40, but not top 12 career.

Doncic is my #14 ever at his 3rd year in the league (behind Baylor, Kareem, Mikan, Chamberlain, Bird, Shaq, Oscar, Russell, Hakeem, Wade, Walton, Duncan, Jordan - not in order).

He's younger than all of them.

I have some concerns re/ attitude and even playstyle, but he should get to the top 20 with a normal arc.

You need both a great start, strong longevity, and probably very great teammates/organization to break into the top 10. Like Hakeem is probably my #10, and he is #10 all time for points regular season/playoffs combined, and #1 in blocks, with an MVP a DPOY and a goat level, historically great run where he led back to back titles on some not so amazing teams, with dominating playoff performances against a bunch of 1st ballot HOF guys at his position.

You probably need at LEAST 2-3 mvps and 2-3 finals MVPs to lock up a spot in the top 10 at this point, along with great longevity.

I think top 10 is rough, but I’d be disappointed in him if he didn’t make it to the top 25 at least.

That book is so far from being written, that it’s hard to say for sure. He has loads of potential, but he doesn’t strike me at all as a top 10 type of talent which is really hard to crack.

Definitely on pace for top 20, possibly higher.

Insanely talented and ridiculous feel for the game already at age 22. LeBron's age 22 season was 2007, and it felt like he took a small step back before exploding in 2008 and then even more in 2009.

Luka is primed to do the same. Should be the MVP favorite going into next year and I have a hard time seeing him not winning a few through his mid to late 20s.

The Mavs will need to get him a proper big man though if he is to have sustained Playoff success.

NO-KG-AI wrote:You need both a great start, strong longevity, and probably very great teammates/organization to break into the top 10. Like Hakeem is probably my #10, and he is #10 all time for points regular season/playoffs combined, and #1 in blocks, with an MVP a DPOY and a goat level, historically great run where he led back to back titles on some not so amazing teams, with dominating playoff performances against a bunch of 1st ballot HOF guys at his position.

You probably need at LEAST 2-3 mvps and 2-3 finals MVPs to lock up a spot in the top 10 at this point, along with great longevity.

What is your top 15 if you don't mind my asking?

ardee wrote:

NO-KG-AI wrote:You need both a great start, strong longevity, and probably very great teammates/organization to break into the top 10. Like Hakeem is probably my #10, and he is #10 all time for points regular season/playoffs combined, and #1 in blocks, with an MVP a DPOY and a goat level, historically great run where he led back to back titles on some not so amazing teams, with dominating playoff performances against a bunch of 1st ballot HOF guys at his position.

You probably need at LEAST 2-3 mvps and 2-3 finals MVPs to lock up a spot in the top 10 at this point, along with great longevity.

What is your top 15 if you don't mind my asking?

My top 10 is Jordan, Kareem, LeBron, Russell, Wilt, Magic, Bird, Shaq, Duncan, Hakeem.

My next 5 are probably Kobe, Garnett, Jerry West, Oscar, Dirk in some order. I'm less sure about those 5 than I am about the top 10, and this is admittedly without a ton of thought about those 5. I think 11-15 could go a lot of ways, and it's really when you start getting to like 20-30 where there are guys that are just very clearly not better than Luka, and he just needs some years played to pass them.

ardee wrote:Definitely on pace for top 20, possibly higher.

Insanely talented and ridiculous feel for the game already at age 22. LeBron's age 22 season was 2007, and it felt like he took a small step back before exploding in 2008 and then even more in 2009.

Luka is primed to do the same. Should be the MVP favorite going into next year and I have a hard time seeing him not winning a few through his mid to late 20s.

The Mavs will need to get him a proper big man though if he is to have sustained Playoff success.

To be fair though, I think James had higher potential in 2007 going forward because of his physical profile. Luka still has a lot ways to improve (particulary shooting and decision making, but also off-ball play and defense) but I don't think he'll reach that GOAT-level teritory.

As for bigs, imagine Gobert in Dallas

Check my name.

LukaTheGOAT wrote:Check my name.

Are you the one vote for goat I assume? Lol

No-more-rings wrote:

LukaTheGOAT wrote:Check my name.

Are you the one vote for goat I assume? Lol

I actually didn't vote. I couldn't decide, because I feel like option #2 makes you the GOAT as well. Once you are in that 2nd group, there will be many people who view you as the GOAT. I imagine it will be hard to get a majority opinion for the position of GOAT if that is what it was asking. A small hangup that made me not vote, lol.

LukaTheGOAT wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:

LukaTheGOAT wrote:Check my name.

Are you the one vote for goat I assume? Lol

I actually didn't vote. I couldn't decide, because I feel like option #2 makes you the GOAT as well. Once you are in that 2nd group, there will be many people who view you as the GOAT. I imagine it will be hard to get a majority opinion for the position of GOAT if that is what it was asking. A small hangup that made me not vote, lol.

You think Doncic could be as good as Lebron or Jordan given his limited athleticism and defense compared to them? I just can’t get behind that.

LukaTheGOAT wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:

LukaTheGOAT wrote:Check my name.

Are you the one vote for goat I assume? Lol

I actually didn't vote. I couldn't decide, because I feel like option #2 makes you the GOAT as well. Once you are in that 2nd group, there will be many people who view you as the GOAT. I imagine it will be hard to get a majority opinion for the position of GOAT if that is what it was asking. A small hangup that made me not vote, lol.

You think Doncic could be as good as Lebron or Jordan given his limited athleticism and defense compared to them? I just can’t get behind that.

I'd say he has a decent shot at top 25. He's certainly ahead of that pace now, and is a killer in the postseason so that's one red flag you don't have to worry about. This is also factoring in a peak close to where he is now and could be underselling him. However, there are still plenty of concerns. Not only does he need consistency with his conditioning but he's been nicked up a lot in his short career thus far. Those are somewhat related so hopefully improving the former improves the latter.

He needs more consistently with his 3-ball, at the FT line, and less lapses in judgement with his decision making. I think most of his issues defensively come from conditioning so I'm not as concerned about that. If you get current Luka for another 7 years, some more postseason success, and a few decent post-prime years I think he'll be around 25.

ardee wrote:Definitely on pace for top 20, possibly higher.

Insanely talented and ridiculous feel for the game already at age 22. LeBron's age 22 season was 2007, and it felt like he took a small step back before exploding in 2008 and then even more in 2009.

Luka is primed to do the same. Should be the MVP favorite going into next year and I have a hard time seeing him not winning a few through his mid to late 20s.

The Mavs will need to get him a proper big man though if he is to have sustained Playoff success.

small correction, luka is 23, this is his equivalent to 2008 lebron

I get an Oscar Robertson vibe from him.

No-more-rings wrote:

LukaTheGOAT wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Are you the one vote for goat I assume? Lol

I actually didn't vote. I couldn't decide, because I feel like option #2 makes you the GOAT as well. Once you are in that 2nd group, there will be many people who view you as the GOAT. I imagine it will be hard to get a majority opinion for the position of GOAT if that is what it was asking. A small hangup that made me not vote, lol.

You think Doncic could be as good as Lebron or Jordan given his limited athleticism and defense compared to them? I just can’t get behind that.

It depends on how you value the accolades of ATGs.
Suppose if Green did not get the ban and Curry won 2016 FMVP; 2019 Thompson did not get hurt and Curry won another FMVP. This year Curry gets another. Would you rank Curry ahead of LeBron with 6 rings, never lost in the finals, and 3 FMVPs, or at least ahead of Duncan? He would never have the athleticism and defense.