Lets admit the obvious: SGA is a better player than Luka

[Rubios]

*Finished with a not-so-succint point I'll add at the bottom, which you can choose not to read.

I only need two premises.

1. You can't go wrong with either one.
2. Let's assume Luka just gets back to his 23-24 level (and that's "fat Luka"), even if he never improves from there.
As there's zero reasons -besides Mavs' propaganda- suggesting Luka is injury-prone. Doncic, professional since he's 15, got to the '24 PO with knee pain and developed a calf strain -probably an imbalance for playing 22 PO games with a compromised knee and going with Slovenia right after not letting it heal properly- that has left him off the court most of this season. Nothing career altering here. Not an achilles, not an ACL, and whatever happened to his knee... well, he could play through it so it's no big deal.


If I was a GM (a functional one, not Nico) I will pick SGA if #1 My team is solid but lacking defense and/or #2 I trust his work ethic will keep him improving leaps from season to season.

And I will pick Luka if #1 I prioritize offense and/or #2 My team is just decent, as he has shown the ability to elevate teams to places they had no business being in, like LeBron did but to a -much- lesser degree.

Fair?

In the void, as I've said in the poll, I'd go with Luka because I believe players of that caliber should play on teams able to got their back covered as long as they're amazing offensively. Oh, and I believe that he'll improve, too.


*Now, the mental aspect. I hate some of his antics, too, but the fattest part of Luka are his balls. Allow me to oversimplify, but there's something about Balkan people. As opposite as they are, you can see it on Jokic, too. And many athletes from many sports. They are just colder.
Luka is a mofo. Luka breaks people. Like he broke Booker and Edwards.

Now, he's on the Lakers with all the noise and doubt surrounding him, and even playing... so-so at best, he's been yelling at his team mates, asking for the ball and shooting big volume since day one.
In LA. In LeBron's team. He just doesn't care.

I'm SO sure that, just to prove a point, he'll be beyond amazing next season.
Plus, he's playing with his idol and Lakers Nation will be extremely severe with him. And he thrives in these situations.

Have you seen the "A trial for Luka" commercial, right? Do you understand how **** confident do you need to be to accept that script?

[Lalouie]

SGA hasn't sniffed the WCF before this year.

and it took parity in full steam to do it

[Lalouie]

I've been reading a lot of comments on how Luka on the Thunder in place of SGA would be a better team and I completely disagree. No team can hide Luka's inability to defend. Even Goatruso can't save him. SGA just gives you more on both ends without dominating the ball.

how about putting sga on last year's mav team

how about putting sga on the 2018 24win dallas team. that was their last year before drafting luka

[Archx]

how about putting sga on last year's mav team

There is a lot of people who claim SGA is a better playmaker and makes his team better. Well...

Alley-oop dunks in the 2024 Playoffs:
-Dereck Lively 22
-Daniel Gafford 18
-Derrick Jones 12.
The most by any other TEAM in the Playoffs: Nuggets 9

TOTALS
-Alley Oop Dunks by team in the Playoffs: Mavs- 54, Everyone Else - 59

[tamaraw08]

There is one thing Luka was better at this season. Rebounding. SGA was arguably better in every other area.

Are you not counting passing though? And btw, isn't it hard to judge Luka adjusting to his new team's schemes and knowing his teammates tendencies and strengths etc.
I'm not saying though that Doncic is better.

[Lalouie]

how about putting sga on last year's mav team

There is a lot of people who claim SGA is a better playmaker and makes his team better. Well...

Alley-oop dunks in the 2024 Playoffs:
-Dereck Lively 22
-Daniel Gafford 18
-Derrick Jones 12.
The most by any other TEAM in the Playoffs: Nuggets 9

TOTALS
-Alley Oop Dunks by team in the Playoffs: Mavs- 54, Everyone Else - 59

okc is a very "organic " team. it's core grew together not unlike the westbrook/kd team. there's a synergy in that. now we know okc minus sga - it's 5and1 in 2025.

what would sga be without okc i wonder. say port, because in 2018 the mavs were 24wins. that's lower than port this year

sga is great, luka is a genius

[tamaraw08]

I've been reading a lot of comments on how Luka on the Thunder in place of SGA would be a better team and I completely disagree. No team can hide Luka's inability to defend. Even Goatruso can't save him. SGA just gives you more on both ends without dominating the ball.

how about putting sga on last year's mav team

how about putting sga on the 2018 24win dallas team. that was their last year before drafting luka

Here we go again with this very stupid take that Luka is such a bad defender that no teammate can save him and the opposing team would simply exploit his lack of defense.

If this is the case then OKC lead by SGA, Jdub and all teammates are too stupid and dumb that they FAILED TO OUTSCORE Dallas and average 120pts/game when they faced each other last year.
OKC just averaged 106 pts, shot UNDER 46% against Dallas with a bad defender like Luka.

[Lalouie]

how about putting sga on last year's mav team

There is a lot of people who claim SGA is a better playmaker and makes his team better. Well...

Alley-oop dunks in the 2024 Playoffs:
-Dereck Lively 22
-Daniel Gafford 18
-Derrick Jones 12.
The most by any other TEAM in the Playoffs: Nuggets 9

TOTALS
-Alley Oop Dunks by team in the Playoffs: Mavs- 54, Everyone Else - 59

okc is a very "organic " team. it's core grew together not unlike the westbrook/kd team. there's a synergy in that. now we know okc minus sga - it's 5and1 in 2025.

what would sga be without okc i wonder. say port, because in 2018 the mavs were 24wins. that's lower than port this year

sga is great, luka is a genius

just did a chatgpt, splitting shai's first 3yrs @okc when they stunk and his last 2yrs @okc when they've been good

the with/without records of those two splits are basically telling me,,,,,,,"yeah, so what about shai, anyways"

[Flopper]

Pretty easy answer here since one guy is a plus defender while the other is complete garbage on that end. You can't hide bad perimeter defenders in a league where the good playoff teams will continuously exploit poor weakside recovery and closeouts and will constantly force switches to your weakest link. Niko is an idiot for getting such a poor return on Luka, but his logic for trading him was actually sound.

[Lalouie]

Pretty easy answer here since one guy is a plus defender while the other is complete garbage on that end. You can't hide bad perimeter defenders in a league where the good playoff teams will continuously exploit poor weakside recovery and closeouts and will constantly force switches to your weakest link. Niko is an idiot for getting such a poor return on Luka, but his logic for trading him was actually sound.

it's not sound following a finals appearance. while the mavs were running through the playoffs, was nico saying to himself
"this ain't gonna work
this ain't gonna work
this ain't gonna work
this ain't gonna work
this ain't gonna work
this ain't gonna work
this ain't gonna work
this ain't gonna work"

[NZB2323]

I've been reading a lot of comments on how Luka on the Thunder in place of SGA would be a better team and I completely disagree. No team can hide Luka's inability to defend. Even Goatruso can't save him. SGA just gives you more on both ends without dominating the ball.

how about putting sga on last year's mav team

how about putting sga on the 2018 24win dallas team. that was their last year before drafting luka

Here we go again with this very stupid take that Luka is such a bad defender that no teammate can save him and the opposing team would simply exploit his lack of defense.

If this is the case then OKC lead by SGA, Jdub and all teammates are too stupid and dumb that they FAILED TO OUTSCORE Dallas and average 120pts/game when they faced each other last year.
OKC just averaged 106 pts, shot UNDER 46% against Dallas with a bad defender like Luka.

SGA averaged 32, 8, and 7, 59.9 TS% in that series and he’s better this year.

[sunsbg]

If SGA fails to win the final series with historically good RS team I assume the poll results will change in Luka's favour.

[Lalouie]

how about putting sga on last year's mav team

how about putting sga on the 2018 24win dallas team. that was their last year before drafting luka

Here we go again with this very stupid take that Luka is such a bad defender that no teammate can save him and the opposing team would simply exploit his lack of defense.

If this is the case then OKC lead by SGA, Jdub and all teammates are too stupid and dumb that they FAILED TO OUTSCORE Dallas and average 120pts/game when they faced each other last year.
OKC just averaged 106 pts, shot UNDER 46% against Dallas with a bad defender like Luka.

SGA averaged 32, 8, and 7, 59.9 TS% in that series and he’s better this year.

according to reference, in the regular season 2024 okc's team ts% last year was 60.8. okc had ten players over 60ts%. celts had two, denver had four or five

stats are whatever you want them to be, right. who cares

could it be that shai benefits as well with being on a steamroller of a team? maybe we should credit presti and daigneault as architects of the team

[Wagonband]

Luka is too big to ever be able to consistently guard fast guards on the perimeter, that's just a fact. But when he is healthy he can do it ok, and he is probably an above average defender vs bigger players and in the post even against some "centers".

I don't know why this is hard to understand. Think of it this way. Let's say Luka guards SGA or any other super fast guard, and there is no help defence. How many points will SGA score? Probably 50, maybe even 70. Now reverse it. Let's say SGA guards Luka and there is no help defence allowed. How many will Luka score? Well it's going to go over 100.

So it's unfair for bigger players to be rated defensively purely in 1v1 matchups when other factors aren't considered. Also, by this logic Hakeem would be a bad defender as well. Modern guards would cook him on the perimeter, but that's not how you measure defence.

And ofc i'm not saying Luka is a lockdown defender, but his lack of defence isn't really such a big deal when on most days he will score twice as much as he will allow

[Mavrelous]

Luka is too big to ever be able to consistently guard fast guards on the perimeter, that's just a fact. But when he is healthy he can do it ok, and he is probably an above average defender vs bigger players and in the post even against some "centers".

I don't know why this is hard to understand. Think of it this way. Let's say Luka guards SGA or any other super fast guard, and there is no help defence. How many points will SGA score? Probably 50, maybe even 70. Now reverse it. Let's say SGA guards Luka and there is no help defence allowed. How many will Luka score? Well it's going to go over 100.

So it's unfair for bigger players to be rated defensively purely in 1v1 matchups when other factors aren't considered. Also, by this logic Hakeem would be a bad defender as well. Modern guards would cook him on the perimeter, but that's not how you measure defence.

And ofc i'm not saying Luka is a lockdown defender, but his lack of defence isn't really such a big deal when on most days he will score twice as much as he will allow

Exactly.
The bogus claim in the OP is that Luka is such a horrible defender you can't build a great defense with him on the floor, this is factually false, not only that, in 22 Mavs built a good defense w/ona good personnel even.

[Deathray]

Throughout most of last year's playoffs Luka had leg injuries that visibly impaired his ability to move and he still carried the team to the Finals.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Tbh I’m just happy no one has pulled in the fake blow by stat yet

[Primedeion]

Throughout most of last year's playoffs Luka had leg injuries that visibly impaired his ability to move and he still carried the team to the Finals.

Yeah he really "carried" them with his inefficient chucking.

[Woolyy]

This is so disrespectful to Luka lol. Don't compare him to that FT merchant.

[Stan]

I guarantee this poll fluctuates on the basis of every game. SGA has a great game, he takes the lead, he has a bad game, Luka surpasses him. I remember checking before Game 3 SGA was in the lead, one bad game he now trails by 3 lol. People are such prisoners of the moment.