Doncic’s effort was his seventh-straight game with 30 or more points, last accomplished by Wilt Chamberlain to open the 1962-63 season. Doncic is one of the top five best players in the NBA at such a young age.
If it was not for another European-born player in Denver, he certainly would be considered for the best international player.
Doncic, the 2019 NBA Rookie-of-the-Year finished in the top six in league MVP voting each year after his rookie season, which was also the last time Dallas missed the playoffs. Through seven games, Doncic is averaging an astonishing 36.1 points per game, on 51.4-percent shooting. The 6-foot-7 point guard is also dishing nine assists on average, just because he feels like it.
The Atlanta Hawks drafted Doncic third overall in 2018, then flipped him to Dallas for Trae Young and the Mavericks’ protected first-round pick in 2019, which was used to select Cam Reddish. After three seasons in Atlanta, Reddish was flipped as part of a package deal to the New York Knicks for Kevin Knox and another protected future first-round pick.
Young got Atlanta to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021, while Doncic and the Mavericks were defeated in five games by Golden State last season.
The Warriors won the title last season, and did not need to blow a three-games-to-one lead or bring in Kevin Durant to do it either. It might have been the first legitimate championship of Steph Curry’s career.
This season, the hope for Dallas is that Doncic is able to work well with forward Christian Wood, whom the Mavericks traded four players to acquire from Houston on June 24. Wood is in the final year of his current contract, while Doncic is in the first year of a 5-year, $215 million extension. In fact, Doncic and guard Josh Green are the only homegrown players currently on Dallas’ roster, with everyone else having come in via trade or free agency.
Nikola Jokic is 27, but is coming off back-to-back league MVP awards with the Denver Nuggets. Jokic was signed to a supermax extension by the Nuggets back in July, so the rivalry between Denver and Dallas is going to be a lot of fun to watch until 2028. We know Curry’s career should be winding down or over by the time Doncic and Jokic reach the end of their contracts, unless Draymond Green wants to call one of the two up in the parking lot after losing in the playoffs, like when the Warriors choked away the 2016 NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers on their home floor.
Doncic also has the Olympic record for points in a single game with 48, set back in the postponed 2020 summer games in Tokyo. If all the world's a stage, Doncic is certainly in position to lead Dallas back to the biggest stage in basketball next summer. The best player in the regular season may not always have the best team outcome when the playoffs start. Russell Westbrook went out in the first round after averaging a triple-double in 2017, en route to winning the MVP.
Luka Doncic is the most complete player in the NBA in all facets of the game. He can score, rebound, pass, and plays better defense than anyone honestly wants to give him credit for. Westbrook and Curry have never had the term “lockdown” associated with their defensive play at any time. Giannis Antetokounmpo is not going to dish out double-digit assists for two-thirds of the Milwaukee Bucks’ games.
Most importantly, you are never going to see Durant and “character-guy teammate” in the same sentence, like you will in Dallas.
-JC24