The 2019-20 Luka Dončić Thread

[Heej]

Maybe. Even if he carries this out the rest of this season plus two more seasons, he'd still have some work to do to reach Bird level.

But yeah, for a 2nd year 20 year old, he's already in extremely rarefied air.

At this point I really doubt he'll ever match Bird's defensive prowess. Bird's hands and anticipation were Jason Kidd level.

Luka doesn't need to get close to Bird's defensive prowess to be just as valuable as Bird, because he's already more dynamic on-ball as a scorer and has shown that as a playmaker his ability can rival anyone in history, Bird included.

I certainly believe this to be the case, but he'll have to improve quite a bit more all around for me to give him the nod over peak Bird. His defense will never catch up, so it remains to be seen how much better his offense becomes and how scaleable it can be on a championship level team around other stars. The one thing Bird had going for him is that his game was ridiculously scaleable to be able to raise the games of McHale and Parish like that.

[Dr Positivity]

Isn't his best comp Harden?

[NinjaSheppard]

Isn't his best comp Harden?

I think his best comp is actually Wayne Gretzky. Just an absolute savant who doesn't have the greatest physical tools and in a way you wouldn't be able to explain why he plays like the GOAT but he just does.

Basketball relies more on athleticism than hockey so Luka might not become the GOAT but that comparison popped into my head and I feel like its perfect.

[Dr Positivity]

Isn't his best comp Harden?

I think his best comp is actually Wayne Gretzky. Just an absolute savant who doesn't have the greatest physical tools and in a way you wouldn't be able to explain why he plays like the GOAT but he just does.

Basketball relies more on athleticism than hockey so Luka might not become the GOAT but that comparison popped into my head and I feel like its perfect.

Well it's a little early for Gretzky comps

I actually thought about the comparison before not necessarily based on his current play, but in how rare his European production was. Gretzky was a prodigy type guy that became famous for scoring 378 goals and 517 points as a 10 year old, was a 14 year old playing against 20 year olds and still ROY and one of the best players, etc. Doncic playing against men and putting up numbers that shouldn't be possible in Europe is probably one of the closest basketball situations to that type of teenage comet

[freethedevil]

Luka's cieling is a more dynamic version of harden I think.

[freethedevil]

e on offense. As such, the right fit becomes more important than just stacking talent on talent.

For example, if Giannis somehow ended in Dallas, the ability to maximize both Luka and Giannis on the same team becomes a problem, because both need the ball in their hands to squeeze league-leading impact out of them.

Giannis's leage leading impact largely comes from his defense which luka will do well to nto be a glaring liability at. Having Giannis anchor your defense more than makes up for sacrifcing a bit of his offensive impact, not that Giannis wouldn't benefit from Luka's passing and Luka wouldn't benefit greatly from defenses having to build a wall against giannis

Any GM who passed on pairing giannis with luka should be fired propmtly

[freethedevil]

Zero doubt Dallas should act as if they have an all-timer of a prospect on the roster, cause they do. Dude's already ready to lead a contending offense. Small caveat for RS play, but I have no long-term doubts for the playoffs, the 1st time can throw a guy off, but after that I'm certain he'll be fine. PHX/SAC 100% made an all-time blunder.

At least pheonix has the excuse of following the hype. Literally no one thought bagley was in luka's strosphere as a prospect but the kings just went for it anyway.

[lavta]

Interestingly his best defensive season still continues to be 2016-17. I've must have written like half a dozen scouting posts on Doncic on this forum and I remember the first one I did was on his secondary rim protection through weakside rotations. I think it was right after 2017 Eurobasket and right before 2017-18 season.

He wasn't a primary creator nor his team's best player in 2016-17 and in 2017 Eurobasket. Llull and Dragic were both of those respectively. Then Llull tore his ACL in the summer and suddenly Doncic moved to be RM's primary creator in 2017-18 and his defensive performance dropped heavily from 2016-17 and 2017 Eurobasket to 2017-18. I mean early 2017-18 season was just a month or two away from 2017 Eurobasket but this was still the case. That valuable secondary rim protection was almost entirely gone and every other area of defence regressed too.

I said this during his nba rookie season as well but the curious thing is if he can merge at least his 2016-17 level of defence with his offence and that still stands in his 2nd season. To be honest, I didn't expect him to raise his defensive level this season, I thought last year and still think if that ever happens, it will be in his mid-20s probably with a better physical state. Still I'm not sure if he ever goes back to that level of defence because for one the trend in the nba is not heading the way of high volume primary creators looking to give their best on defence in RS, it is trending the opposite way arguably. For another, he still had visible weaknesses like close-out technique and navigation through screens in 2016-17 and him not giving much effort and/or focus on defence the last three seasons including this new season, made those so much worse and I think his muscle memories might get too used to those habits.

With how great he is playing, seems like I'd have to correct this "Doncic dominated Europe" narrative for many more years to come. But again, he didn't. Players hardly ever dominate European basketball, it's not a players' medium, it's coaches' medium. He also didn't put up numbers that shouldn't be possible in Europe and individual stats don't really matter in euroball either, nobody cares about them. And for all of their shortcomings, stats in the nba still are a lot more representative of a player's performance than in europe.

What Doncic was a totally unprecedented player in terms of how good he was from ages 17-19 and he was/is at the best European prospects of all time tier with Drazen and Sabonis with everyone else clearly below those 3.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Luka's cieling is a more dynamic version of harden I think.

It should be a 6-7 Steve Nash.
If that happens we have a goat candidate

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[freethedevil]

Luka's cieling is a more dynamic version of harden I think.

It should be a 6-7 Steve Nash.
If that happens we have a goat candidate

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Here is nowhere near quick enough to be steve nash lol.

[JVL]

Another spectacular game by Luka. When the Rockets came within 5 early in the 4th and looked like they might run away with this game he found another gear to get his team back up to a comfortable double digit lead. That stretch sealed the game.

What an amazing player.

[therealbig3]

So where can Doncic improve the most, to where his game can continue to new heights? Like, for LeBron, it was obviously his shooting, defense, and offensive versatility (ie, posting up). He improved on all of those and he turned into a consensus top 5 GOAT, if not the GOAT.

He can probably improve more as a shooter. Not counting today's game, he's under 35% from 3 and about 82% from the line. Given his form and his shooting touch, I don't think 50/40/90 is out of the question.

And then obviously his defense. People are saying he can't ever reach Bird's level of defense, and I'm not sure why not. He's clearly intelligent enough, and he's got great physical tools. He just needs to keep working hard and put as much effort into defense as he does offense. Plenty of guys around the league who aren't great athletes that are still positive impact defenders, and they don't have the size or smarts of Luka.

Better defense + more consistent shooting = GOAT-tier player.

[70sFan]

As much as I appreciate him playing, people need to stop talking about "the best white player in NBA history" right now. He's not on West or Bird level yet. It's not even 20 games. I know, it's not only about production but I remember people picking Giannis over peak Shaq in the middle of the season. Hype is a big, strong thing but don't overreact

[freethedevil]

physical tools

No he does not. He can't jump high and he lacks any lateral agility. Literally the only way he's going to be eve nuetral defensively is jokic-esque vision.

His physical tools are not at all suited for good defense

[Doctor MJ]

Zero doubt Dallas should act as if they have an all-timer of a prospect on the roster, cause they do. Dude's already ready to lead a contending offense. Small caveat for RS play, but I have no long-term doubts for the playoffs, the 1st time can throw a guy off, but after that I'm certain he'll be fine. PHX/SAC 100% made an all-time blunder.

At least pheonix has the excuse of following the hype. Literally no one thought bagley was in luka's strosphere as a prospect but the kings just went for it anyway.

I don’t know that Phoenix is any less embarrassing.

1) Luka had the most hype. Yes Ayton was also hyped but it can’t be claimed that he had more hype than Luka by any means. The Detroit Darko Defense for picking Ayton is a non-starter.

2) They had hired Luka’s coach and then refused to actually build in the obvious way given that coach’s strengths.

That combination indicates incompetence to the extreme.

Phoenix and Sacramento has already been arguably the two most incompetent franchises of the decade (Knicks of course have a strong argument) and it’s just really quite the telling capstone un-achievement for 2018 to come around with each having the opportunity to draft a truly generational talent only to seemingly reject that talent based on a types of over-thinking only insecure failures would be prone to.

It’s embarrassing to draft a white Euro at #1/2 and have him bust and these teams basically signaled that there was no amount of scouting reports that would make them dare that humiliation.

And so they now earn a far, far worse humiliation.


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[Texas Chuck]

Tony Parker was an elite at the rim finisher as well and without looking it up I don't even know if he could dunk. You don't have to be prime Nique or Kemp to be a great finisher.

Yeah but Tony was much faster than Luka.
That changes a lot of things.
The "problem" with Luka is that he is neither fast neither have a big jump so it makes rim's attacks much harder for him even tough he has some big weapons with enable him to do it as his fakes, his craftyness and his body and size

considering how well he finishes at the rim and his draw rate, are we sure there is even a "problem"? My point with including Parker was not to say they do it the same way, but to illustrate you don't have to be Lebron to finish at the rim.

[Yuri36]

Tony Parker was an elite at the rim finisher as well and without looking it up I don't even know if he could dunk. You don't have to be prime Nique or Kemp to be a great finisher.

Yeah but Tony was much faster than Luka.
That changes a lot of things.
The "problem" with Luka is that he is neither fast neither have a big jump so it makes rim's attacks much harder for him even tough he has some big weapons with enable him to do it as his fakes, his craftyness and his body and size

considering how well he finishes at the rim and his draw rate, are we sure there is even a "problem"? My point with including Parker was not to say they do it the same way, but to illustrate you don't have to be Lebron to finish at the rim.

It might be in the long run when opponents will have specifically built gameplans to stop him and especially in POs.

[Texas Chuck]

Yeah but Tony was much faster than Luka.
That changes a lot of things.
The "problem" with Luka is that he is neither fast neither have a big jump so it makes rim's attacks much harder for him even tough he has some big weapons with enable him to do it as his fakes, his craftyness and his body and size

considering how well he finishes at the rim and his draw rate, are we sure there is even a "problem"? My point with including Parker was not to say they do it the same way, but to illustrate you don't have to be Lebron to finish at the rim.

It might be in the long run when opponents will have specifically built gameplans to stop him and especially in POs.

Sure maybe. I mean we can all postulate whatever we want. But again back to Parker--you don't think teams went into games saying we can't let this guy get to the rim at will? And yet for a decade nobody could stop it.

Right now the Mavs have the best offense in the league. They have no other offensive threat that remotely strikes fear in an opponent. Guess where the defensive focus is right now? It's not Tim Hardaway.


I get people want to be skeptical. I was intentionally skeptical all last year because I didn't want to get overhyped. But I don't see how anyone can watch him offensively right now and not come away blown away.

[AdagioPace]

physical tools

No he does not. He can't jump high and he lacks any lateral agility. Literally the only way he's going to be eve nuetral defensively is jokic-esque vision.

His physical tools are not at all suited for good defense

are we still going with "he can't jump hence he can't be more than a average efender" take after all the endless discussions about how IQ can play a major role?? Of course, I don't believe Doncic will become a notable defender either due to his limited "fixed" physical traits. As far as improvable physical tools are concerned, Doncic is still a baby and Europe doesn't emphasize "body-building" and strenght conditioning like the NBA does (simply different requirements). He only has 1 serious "strenght" season under his belt and I think the Mavs staff is still trying to find out what plan is compatible with his natural offensive skills and agility. Jokic is not a good comparison given that his ability to keep his shape is average (for a normal human being). I think he could peak as a +0.5/+1 defender in the future with good effort from him.

[Yuri36]

considering how well he finishes at the rim and his draw rate, are we sure there is even a "problem"? My point with including Parker was not to say they do it the same way, but to illustrate you don't have to be Lebron to finish at the rim.

It might be in the long run when opponents will have specifically built gameplans to stop him and especially in POs.

Sure maybe. I mean we can all postulate whatever we want. But again back to Parker--you don't think teams went into games saying we can't let this guy get to the rim at will? And yet for a decade nobody could stop it.

Yeah but i think it's harder to build a gameplan to stop someone who has decent skill who is either faster or stronger (if not both) than anyone (so in one word, a physical freak) than to stop someone who relies much more on pure skill.