Luka Doncic is by most reasonable measures the best basketball player on the planet not currently in the NBA. How will he impact the league when he begins his NBA career next season?
Before you compare Luka Doncic to previous international prospects lauded in the pre-draft process that ultimately flamed out in the NBA, understand this: What Luka Doncic is doing in the world’s second-best basketball league is unprecedented.
He is 18 years old and dominating a league filled with grown men, including former NBA and NCAA Division I players. He dominated in Eurobasket – a competition also filled with grown men, including current NBA All-Stars, starters and rotation players.
Players his age, if they even make it on the roster of a franchise of Real Madrid’s caliber, rarely if ever receive serious rotation minutes. He is receiving 25 minutes per game (Euroleague players generally receive smaller minutes loads than NBA players – 25 is standard for an upper-tier starter) on one of Europe’s best teams.
Not only has he managed to earn an opportunity that few, if any, players his age ever receive, he is thriving. He is currently putting up 23 points, 8 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 1.5 steals per 36 minutes with a hyper-efficient 60.8 true shooting percentage and 29 percent usage rate.
Here is an exhaustive list of NBA players to achieve 20-7-6 on 60 percent true shooting and 29 percent usage: Michael Jordan, James Harden and Lebron James (3x). Doncic is averaging fewer turnovers per 36 than any of them did, save LeBron James in his legendary 2013 campaign.
Granted he is doing this in Euroleague as opposed to the NBA. It is a step down, although not as much of one.
Counting stats on a per 36 minutes scale is a myopic way to project draft prospects, but that gives you an idea of how unique Doncic’s skills and production are. Even more myopic than using counting stats to predict future performance would be knocking him down your big board because of preconceptions of European prospects or competition.
There is little use in viewing him through the lens of historical precedent. There is no historical precedent for Doncic.
None of that is to argue he will be a guaranteed NBA success. It is just important to put his performance into context to evaluate him properly.
Although he is not without shortcomings, he possesses unteachable talent. Doncic is a next-level passer, an excellent scorer and an underrated defender and athlete. Let’s dive into it.
Passing and the pick and roll
For all the concerns about Luka Doncic’s explosiveness and athleticism, it may end up not being all that important.
While being able to blow by athletic defenders certainly would be a boost to his offensive productivity, he is more than capable of making incredible reads and passes from all over the floor under tight defensive pressure. He is a crafty pick-and-roll ball handler and dangerous pull-up shooter more than capable of forcing individual defenders and team defenses into difficult situations.
In this game against Greece during Eurobasket, Doncic’s Slovenia runs a Spain pick-and-roll that results in an odd defensive miscommunication. Essentially, three defenders end up pressuring Doncic in a three-pronged trap (see the video above).
Doncic is still able to identify the advantage on the weakside and execute as accurate a pass as you will ever see in against a high-pressure defense.
Here, against Kristaps Porzingis and the Latvian national team, he zips a bullet pass to the roller despite a hard hedge forcing him out to nearly the halfcourt line.
Holding his composure against aggressive, screen-level pick-and-roll defense bodes well for his ability to continue the elite offensive production in the NBA even without dynamic explosiveness. His ability to attack NBA switch defenses that do not give him an opening to shoot has been a point of concern. But plays like that one provide a reason for optimism.
Those plays also typify how the Slovenian wunderkind has been able to be so productive without an elite first step. Although he is liable to bust out a step back or hesitation move, he does not rely on creating one-on-one advantages with dribble moves.
Against the NBA-caliber athletes he has faced, he has generally been inconsistent creating space in isolation. But because of the threat of his shot off the dribble and his incredible vision and skill navigating pick-and-rolls, he produces anyways.
His deep shooting range forces defenders to go over screens and gives him an extra step on the defense, opening up much of his on-ball offensive game.
He does not need to create deep penetration individually — all he needs is a small window — to facilitate team offense because he is able to exploit advantages created on a team level (i.e. defensive pick-and-roll coverages that require hedging, tagging or help from a third or fourth defender) under pressure from virtually anywhere on the court.
Part of that is due to his height (6-foot-8) and ability to see over defenders, and part is due to his advanced offensive feel and timing. If there is a pressure point in the defense, he will find it and attack it.
Maybe he will not immediately be the kind of player to whom you can throw the ball at the end of a shot clock and expect to create efficient offense by himself consistently. But within a NBA spread pick-and-roll scheme and the league’s defensive three-seconds rule, he will not need to be that to be successful. The improved spacing environment is tailor-made for him.
Doncic is also rarely baited into unreasonably tough shots or otherwise bad decisions when he is unable to create an advantage. He tends to make the right play. Playing alongside a big man that can both finish out of the pick-and-roll and post-up mismatches could help counterbalance whatever offense Doncic loses against switch defenses, at least until he improves his athletic burst in tighter spaces.
His creativity and efficiency as a playmaker is also borne out statistically.
More from Analysis
- 2023 Orlando Magic Playoff Lessons: Philadelphia 76ers can’t seem to avoid conflict
- Orlando Magic FIBA World Cup: Franz Wagner can be a star if he takes it
- Orlando Magic are going to find out who they are in 2024
- 2024 Orlando Magic Player Outlook: Moe Wagner is the spark off of the bench
- NBA 2K Ratings represent Orlando Magic’s hope and skepticism
My playmaking efficiency metric, based on the assist percentages and pure point ratings of 173 NBA prospects in Europe and the NCAA, places him in the 95th percentile of all those prospects.
He has excellent timing on his pick-and-roll passes to both rollers and spot-up shooters, as he can quickly diagnose defenses and identify overhelps, small seams and pockets off the bounce going either direction. But his talent in this area of the game has already been written about ad nauseum.
Doncic’s passing and ball handling are his most important skills when projecting him into the NBA. No team that has done its due diligence will be drafting Doncic for him to be primarily an isolation scorer. He is an offensive initiator.
Although he can create space with craft, the fact that he demonstrably does not require athletic burst or significant space to provide value as a playmaker (coupled with his off-ball scoring – more later) is evidence as strong as you will find that he does not need to be a traditionally explosive athlete to be a very good NBA player.
Scoring
Just like in his passing game, Doncic is at his best as a scorer when he receives a ball screen. He is talented beyond his years at more advanced pick-and-roll ball handling techniques, such as snaking, splitting and putting his defender in jail.
His shiftiness, deceleration and ability to pull up all are key components of his scoring game.
In the clip above, he snakes the defense and finishes a difficult shot through contract, demonstrating his underrated strength and ability to absorb contact.
In the clip below, he splits two defenders and gets in the lane for an easy finish after sending his man through the screen multiple times to get in front of him.
His first step leaves something to be desired. But he does have plus deceleration, which helps him get some space for pull-up jumpers. Here he does exactly that.
The concerns about his ability to produce against switch-heavy NBA defenses that do not inherently provide passing seams for him to exploit or space for him to shoot are still valid.
Despite his shiftiness and craft with the ball, he is unable to create sufficient space here against former NBA big man Kevin Seraphin. He is generally a strong midrange pull-up shooter. But still, plays like these will raise eyebrows about his scalability against modern NBA defense. Seraphin is not exactly a shining example of a lockdown switch defender.
But that has generally been the exception to the rule. While he does not have the burst to blow by defenders, he is able to use his stop/start and deceleration ability to create space. He is similar to James Harden in that sense — both rely more on slowing down than speeding up to create space.
At a cursory glance, his 3-point shooting numbers have not exactly wowed this season. He is down to 32 percent after spending much of his career in the 35-40 percent range.
Much of that decline can be attributed to his increase in usage, as his team relies on him to more frequently take difficult threes off the bounce.
He can still make those shots at a higher rate than most players. But that 32 percent may not be entirely representative of what he may be able to accomplish in the future.
Of course, being able to shoot off the dribble is and will be an important skill for him. But perhaps just as important is his ability to knock down spot-up threes.
He has already demonstrated a penchant for taking (and making) threes from Stephen Curry range, which is a massive boost to his gravity as a shooter and significantly changes the calculus for opposing team defenses when defending him on and off ball.
Being able to draw defenders out beyond the three-point line accomplishes two things. First, it changes the angles his man can use to guard him and makes help defense far more costly and difficult, making one-on-one scoring a bit easier.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it provides more spacing for his teammates when he does not have the ball in his hands. While he is an elite-level initiator, he also will provide value as a secondary scoring threat. That makes a world of difference when projecting the year-over-year offensive value he is likely to provide and his scalability to a diversity of team and lineup constructs.
That scalability sets a high floor for Doncic. There are few other prospects in this draft — if there are any — with his combination of star power and role versatility.
His offensive wing equity was especially prevalent during last year’s Eurobasket, where he played alongside multiple point guards (including Goran Dragic) and went significant stretches playing more as a wing or offensive support player than a primary initiator.
And because of the Slovenian team’s motion-oriented scheme, even on possessions where he was tasked with primary creation duties he often started off ball and received a screen before a handoff or pass instead of bringing the ball up.
As Draft Express breaks down in this video, Doncic’s natural intuition and feel is just as evident when making decisions on the catch as it is handling in the pick-and-roll.
He has a fluid spot-up release and foot mechanics. But like Trae Young, he has a slow turn-and-release motion when coming off screens to shoot.
But Doncic’s height and release point give him a wider margin for error in terms of release speed compared to Young. He also maintains more consistent activity and energy levels without the ball in his hands than Young does. But Young is tasked with a higher usage rate so it is difficult to determine how that may change in a different team situation.
The point is Doncic is just as smart attacking closeouts as he is running an offense. His efficiency numbers are just as impressive — if not even more so — on cuts, spot-ups and shots off screens as they are off the bounce.
Overall, he is a versatile scorer that will be able to find varying degrees of offensive success in a wide range of schemes, teams and lineups. He might not be the most dynamic isolation scorer at this point. But his intelligence and craftiness allow him to dependably exploit every inch the defense gives him. Whether it is with a pass or shot.
Athleticism and Defense
The concerns over Doncic’s physical ability have merit but have also been overblown among many NBA fans due to misconceptions about European competition levels and stereotypes about European prospects.
Marvin Bagley III, who many assume can project as an NBA center for significant portions of his playing time, has the same reported standing reach as Doncic. There is also not a significant difference between the two in terms of defensive instincts and explosion off two feet in space.
Doncic’s unimpressive first step burst in the halfcourt belies his ability to get up off two feet, which he flashes from time-to-time throwing down highlight reel dunks.
Becoming a super effective shot blocker on weakside rotations is not currently within his range of likely NBA outcomes. But the athletic difference between him and some other NCAA prospects is not as wide as some would have you believe.
That said, there is some validity to the athleticism concerns, and they show up on both ends of the floor.
Here, Doncic’s poor lateral quickness is exposed defending a Serbian ball handler — Vasilije Micic — out of the pick-and-roll.
He also struggles to navigate screens, frequently running straight into big men and taking hard hits. On the bright side, he rarely gives up on defensive plays even when he gets bodied, remaining active as a helper and engaged off the ball.
On this play, he gets hung up significantly, but is still able to recover, help, close out and show off his light feet defending the ball. Plays like these make it hard to believe his shortcomings will be impossible to overcome either individually or on a team level. If not by his sheer effort and feel, then by his positional versatility.
While notorious defensive liabilities in the NBA like Isaiah Thomas or Russell Westbrook or prospects like Trae Young can be hidden only on one or two positions, Doncic can slide around four positions depending on whichever is the weakest offensive player.
His strength, height and effort will make it difficult for weak offensive fours to post him up. His light feet and solid instincts will make it hard for weak offensive guards and wings to repeatedly attack him for efficient shots. He is easier to hide and trickier to exploit than players confined to one or two positions.
He probably will not be a plus defender at the next level. But there is a myriad of reasons why he and his NBA team will be able to work around his deficiencies.
Analyzing Fit
Luka Doncic fits on every team in the NBA. Whether that team already has a ball-handling star or if they are starting from scratch, Doncic can star or slide into a role in at least three positions.
The Orlando Magic are no different. This franchise has been starved for a playmaker of his caliber for years. And the team desperately needs more floor spacing. Doncic is the kind of player that can elevate a team in multiple ways. The Magic have strong play finishers and defenders already. Adding an elite, versatile initiator to grow alongside Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac would be a cheat code.
Admittedly, from the prospect’s perspective, the Magic are not a perfect fit for almost anyone. The long-term support pieces past Jonathan Isaac and Aaron Gordon are largely not in place, and the ones that are are less than ideal.
Frank Vogel’s tepid offensive scheme also does not help, as its dull simplicity and lack of dummy actions or weakside movement rarely puts players into advantageous situations.
He would be most successful on a team running a scheme with strong motion elements like what he has experienced in Europe, like the Boston Celtics, perhaps with a second ball handler and strong pick-and-roll support pieces (i.e. a decent screen setter or rim-runner and spot-up shooters).
The Magic cannot say they are the ideal situation for his immediate productivity. But if anyone has the skill and creativity to work around these issues, it is Doncic.
They may not be rim-runners in the traditional sense. But a frontcourt of Gordon and Isaac provides defensive versatility to support Doncic, some spot-up ability and varying degrees of finishing ability at the rim.
Throwing Khem Birch in the mix as a more traditional center option gives the team another strong finisher at the rim with plus defensive versatility for his position. That sounds promising, but the roster outside of that bears more questions than answers.
Next: Uncertain summer guided Orlando Magic at trade deadline
As the Magic continue to build, adding a dynamic initiator with positional versatility is the perfect cornerstone. Only time will tell if they find themselves in position to draft the world’s best player likely to declare for 2018.