But he wasn't according to most "expert" opinion out there. Even the mock drafts had him anywhere from 1 to 5. Ayton was the consensus number 1 pick on almost all mocks near the end.
Indeed. It's easy enough for those who wanted the Kings to draft Luka to say, "Look! See how right I was?!" But the fact of the matter is that GM's at the top of the draft were skeptical of Doncic, not because his talent wasn't obvious, but because there has never been a player like him coming from overseas. Hell, there aren't many players like him coming from US soil, either. It was difficult to know with any certainty how his uniqueness would translate once he stepped foot on NBA parquet.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, so those who were firmly in the "draft Doncic" camp now get the opportunity to crow, while the rest of us have to eat it. Personally, I was on the fence when it came to Doncic. I saw the merits of drafting both Bagley and Doncic, and while I was leaning towards Bagley at the time, I was content with either selection.
Obviously, I feel very differently now. Bagley may yet turn out to be a special player, but Doncic is made for these times. He is the
perfect player for the contemporary NBA, and it's become very clear that the league's current rule set has basically acted like a red carpet for Doncic's arrival. If Bagley has all-star potential, it will be an uphill battle for him to achieve it. The NBA of 2019 doesn't have as much use for players like Marvin Bagley (or DeAndre Ayton, for that matter), and it's a shame that the Kings front office didn't have the wisdom to see that on draft day 2018. I expect to be wrong quite often in my evaluation of NBA talent. But I also expect that NBA decision-makers have access to better scouting tools than I do.
I do find it curious, though, that so many Kings fans through the years have been clamoring desperately for "team basketball," and are likewise slobbering all over themselves while watching Luka Doncic play for the Mavs, especially as many of the same people have spent a lot of time bemoaning the likes of James Harden across the last several seasons. Harden's usage rate is mocked as unsustainable for a true championship contender. His propensity for pounding the ball is denigrated. His parade to the free throw line is seen as unworthy of "real" NBA basketball. He "doesn't play the right way." He is what so many fans characterize as "wrong" with today's game.
Make no mistake, Luka Doncic is
that kind of player. He is as close to Harden 2.0 as you're going to find in the NBA. Many saw the comparisons before he was drafted. It's even clearer now. He's going to be near the top of the league in usage rate every season. He's going to pound the ball like crazy. He's going to suck up all of his team's oxygen, leaving very little room for everyone else. Both his counting stats and his efficiency are going to skyrocket through the roof. And his defense is going to leave much to be desired, but it won't matter, because it's the Luka Doncic Show. It's his world, and his teammates are just living in it. He'll undoubtedly manage to lead the Mavericks to the playoffs repeatedly. But his off-games are going to be problematic, just like Harden's off-games have derailed Houston's ability to get over the hump. It's hard to win it all when one player so thoroughly subsumes an entire team's identity.
Now, I'm not saying these are good reasons to have passed on Luka. If the Kings could redraft 2018 over again, I would be clamoring for Doncic the same as everybody else in this thread. I'd ride with his Harden-esque game as far into the promised land as it could take the Kings, and I'd be thrilled the entire way. That said, I do think there's a bit of a strange compulsion among NBA fans to pick which of the NBA's darlings are most deserving of praise. I don't see how fans can trash Harden's style of play while lionizing Luka's at the same time, as if there is some canyon of difference between their styles of play.
There's not. Harden is a "generational" offensive talent. He makes the NBA's rule set work for him, much to the chagrin of the rest of the league. Luka's the same kind of "generational" offensive talent. He's smart and sly like a fox. In only his second year (and under the tutelage of one of the NBA's best head coaches), he's managed to figure out how to leverage the NBA's systemic leeway for playmakers on the wing into unprecedented success for a second-year player.
All of that said, it's got to feel good to be the Mavericks. Not just because they drafted a player who's flashing MVP potential in his second season, but because he's a legitimate MVP candidate at
20 years old. That's the scary part; if Doncic never gets any better, he'll still be in the MVP conversation
for the next decade. Considering how difficult it's been for the Kings to acquire top shelf talent since the franchise arrived in Sacramento, I'd certainly like to be able to lock down a guy who's in that mix. No use crying over spilled milk, and all that. But it certainly does seem like the Kings are fated by the basketball gods to never rise above the mediocrity they've been mired in since 2006. Maybe the "letting go" of Rick Adelman was the team's "original sin" that they're cursed never to recover from. It's been one sh*tstorm after the other ever since...
, Doncic simply wouldn't be this Doncic. Just as Westbrook is not that Westbrook next to James Harden.
