Rookie sensation Luka Doncic has been the talk of the league since the beginning of the season. Doncic is averaging 19.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game. While shooting 42.9 percent from the field, 35.4 percent from three, and 77 percent from the charity stripe, according to Basketball-reference.com.
Doncic arrived in the NBA with a lot of hype and was already named possibly the most outstanding International basketball prospect ever. Scouts and other basketball experts had questions about if his game and skill set would be able to transition into the NBA. So far this season, he has proved that his game transitions well to the NBA game.
During this time in the Euroleague, Doncic led Real Madrid to the league champion and is the youngest Euroleague MVP. He follows Sergio Llull and wins back-to-back MVPs as a member of Remembered. The only other two times this has happened is when Theodoros Papaloukas and Ramunas Siskauskas of CSKA Moscow won in 2007 and 2008, and Anthony Parker won the award back to back in 2005 and 2006 for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Before the 2018 NBA Draft, former Dallas Maverick Jason Terry was a guest on the Mavs Fanatic Podcast. Terry was asked who he thought could help his former team the Dallas Mavericks in the draft during,g the podcast. Terry gave the nod to fellow Arizona Wildcat DeAndre Ayton.
“DeAndre Ayton is the best prospect in the draft. Reminds me a lot of Joel Embiid. Multifaceted big. Also, Mo Bamb reminds me of Clint Capela, who is my candidate for Most Improved Player.” said Terry.
Terry would continue:
“Michael Porter Jre did not play last season, but he was a phenomenal talent. Had he come out last year, he would havebeen the overall number one pick. He has a lot of questions surrounding him.”
As for Luka at the time:
“Luka Doncic would still be on the board, but he was not sold. Dirk will be the greatest European player ever to play this game. I don’t know if there is another one coming behind him, but you have to figure at some point there will be somebody. I haven’t seen enough of Luka to know what he can do. I’m not going to knock him at all!”
Since then, he has stated the Mavs made the right choice.
Three-time NBA Champion Draymond Green recently said, “That dude going to be a problem. He already has a problem.”
Earlier this season, former Dallas Maverick Nerlens Noel, shared his first impression of “He has a great feel for the game.”
Raymond Felton stated that Luka is “Excellent and he will do great moving forward.”
“Outstanding player, and good pace. He is at his own pace. When having someone on his pace, you never want to speed that up. We knew that he was a good player coming in,” Steven Adams told me.
Wizards point guard John Wall shared this thought about Luka after an early-season loss to Dallas in November.” Very talented and poised, you can tell he has been playing overseas for a while. He is very poised for his age and doing a job scoring the ball in different places. Not very fast or athletic, but knows to get to his spots and very crafty.”
Doncic took his game to another level in the second meeting with the Trailblazers in Portland last week (December-23-18), as he hit a buzzer beater with 0.06 seconds to send the game into overtime. The Mavericks would eventually fall to the Trailblazers 121-118 at the Moda Center.
Before a recent home game against the New Orleans Pelicans, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban answers some questions prior before the two teams came out for their pre-game shoot-around. One of the questions was what was his reaction to Luka’s crazy shot against Portland the other night?
“He crushes that s*** all the time. I’m surprised he doesn’t make more of those. I mean, no, It’s just incredible, but we didn’t win the game, Cuban told me.”
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Landon Buford is an accomplished sports and entertainment journalist based in Richardson, Texas, with over a decade of experience covering the NBA, WNBA, NFL, WWE, MLB, and the entertainment industry. Known for delivering high-impact stories and headline-making interviews, Buford has earned a global audience through content that blends insider access with compelling storytelling.
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