Is Luka Doncic a Sure Thing Number One NBA Lottery Pick?

The NBA Draft Lottery looms. Are teams vying for the chance to take European stud Luka Doncic?

The NBA Draft Lottery is here, and 14 teams will vie Tuesday night for the chance to win basketball’s biggest lottery, move up to number one, and have their pick from a loaded 2018 draft class. That top pick could be freshman phenom Trae Young of Oklahoma, or perhaps it will be chiseled DeAndre Ayton of Arizona. Maybe Michael Porter Jr. will make a run at the top spot— or maybe it will be European phenom Luka Doncic.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you already know a little bit about Doncic, the 19-year-old Slovenian who looks like one of the best European prospects ever. There’s also a good chance you’ve never watched him play, not unless you count a few Twitter GIFs and YouTube highlight packages.

Well, I watched a bunch of Doncic at EuroBasket last summer, and now I watched his Euroleague playoff series against Greek stalwart Panathinaikos, so I’ve seen ten full Doncic games now. That’s not enough to give a full scouting report, and none of it is against NBA competition, but it’s a start. So what we learned about potential number one pick Luka Doncic?

Euroleague Primer

Let’s get one thing out of the way early: Euroleague is not the NBA, and that’s fine. Neither is March Madness or anything else, and the overall quality of skill and coaching is better in Europe than it is in the NCAA. Still, there’s a lot of iso ball and not a lot of defense. And the lack of NBA-level athleticism is glaring at times. You’ve probably watched Olympic basketball before. Team USA has a distinct athleticism advantage against every other basketball team. That doesn’t make those teams bad, it just makes them play differently.

Euroleague is really entertaining, with raucous crowds and over-the-top color commentators. Doncic plays for Real Madrid, and in their first road game of the best-of-5 playoff series against Panathinaikos, the Greeks got off to a roaring start. They stole the tip and laid it in, then stole the ensuing inbounds and hit a corner three to go up 5–0 within seconds, and they ran up the early lead to an incredible 20–0 as the crowd went bonkers. Madrid’s crowd was just as nuts at home. Don’t mistake missed shots and poor execution for bad competition. Like EuroBasket, this is intense competition at the highest level.

That 20–0 start ended up carrying Panathinaikos to their only win of the series, as Real Madrid bounced back to win the next three to head to the Euroleague semifinals. The Greeks roared back from a 22-point road deficit in the closing game of the series, but Doncic hit a three in the final minute to stave off the comeback and send Madrid through.

Offensive skill set

Doncic is not some sort of Euro superstar out there LeBron-ing the competition every night, so don’t get any crazy ideas. This is a 19-year-old kid playing with adult professionals, and I promise you, if he was putting up 27/7/7 every game, you’d hear about it. Instead, Doncic had a quiet 10 points and one rebound in 21 minutes in that blowout road Game 1 loss. If you didn’t go to that game to scout him, you might not have noticed much. Doncic stood out more in others, including an impressive 17 points, 4 boards, and 5 assists in the finale. He led his team in scoring and was second in assists with just one turnover, and he was routinely among the team leaders in minutes played with everything on the line.

Doncic plays one to three on offense, depending on the set. He’s really not the point guard and spent a majority of his time off the ball, though he did often bring the ball up after his teammates proved mostly incapable in that first game 20–0 run-out with a string of comical turnovers.

Doncic doesn’t do a ton off the ball, not a lot of movement. That might be him, or it might just be on Real Madrid’s style of play. Again, this is not the NBA. There was a lot more iso play than NBA fans are used to. Doncic is a high IQ player who would benefit greatly from playing in a system with more player and ball movement.

The talent is more apparent when Doncic has the ball in his hands. Like other cerebral players in recent drafts, you see right away that Doncic has the passing gene. He has good vision, both in that he’s 6'8" and can see over most guards defending him, and that he has a good mind for the game and sees guys getting open. His height and his passing ability allow him to make passes at a variety of angles, the whole arsenal. He can pass over the top or make the bounce pass, and he consistently hit guys in stride or shooting position.

Doncic’s shot looks good, much better than his 31% three would indicate. His go-to move is a dribble step-back three he can get off any time he wants, between the step-back and his height and quick release. He’s comfortable dribbling, though certainly not a high-end ball handler, with a good crossover he can use to create some space. Doncic made a trio of step-back threes in the third quarter of the closeout game, plus a wild step-back off-his-back-foot back-breaker three with a minute left to end Panathinaikos.

Doncic is an excellent rebounder, especially for a player who will likely wind up playing a lot of two or three in the NBA. He’s 6'8" and weighs around 230 pounds, so he’s not exactly a skinny teenager whose body has yet to fill out. He’s thick and tall, and he uses his size and physicality along with his basketball instincts to rack up rebounds, mostly defensively, averaging eight boards per 36 minutes.

Those rebounds are extra valuable because they put the ball in Doncic’s hands where he’s most dangerous — in transition. Doncic can grab and go, or he can turn and make the long outlet pass and hit his teammate in stride. He’s also deceptively quick with a long stride on the dribble, and he’s dangerous with a head of steam heading to the basket. Transition is a chance to use his mind to break the defense before it’s set, and that’s where Doncic shines brightest.

Defense

I wasn’t particularly impressed with Doncic on defense — though again, there was not a lot of high-end defense to be found in these Euroleague games. For reference, Real Madrid shot 20-of-27 on twos (74%) in a closeout game.

On the ball, Doncic is a fine defender because he typically has a size advantage. He usually defended guards he’s bigger than, and he’s good at using his physicality and his body to his advantage. In the NBA, Doncic’s team defending will be more important, and I was less impressed with that. As much as his instincts seem a half step ahead of everyone on offense, they appear a half step slow on defense at times. Maybe they’re thinking but processing too much at once.

Doncic’s eyes wander on defense, and he gets caught ball watching. He got beat a handful of times by back cuts or by screens behind him when he had his eyes on the ball and didn’t see or react to the action off-ball in time. Help defense was not particularly impressive. Again, Doncic seems to react a bit slowly on rotations, and he often gets caught in no man’s land, not quite closing on the ball but also too far out from the man he was defending. That leaves him not in a position to defend either player effectively, and he doesn’t have the elite athleticism to recover like some NBA athletes do. He picked up some cheap fouls trying to recover defensively.

Doncic is a smart player, and you have to assume there’s some upside there for a player as intelligent as him once he learns the system and learns to better use his size and strength. He doesn’t project as a poor defender, but he’s not a good one yet either.

Athleticism and Body

Doncic’s athleticism — or perceived lack thereof — is where opinion really starts to separate for many observers.

Remember Bill Simmons’s alien test? If you sat an alien down to watch a basketball game featuring LeBron James, it would be immediately obvious to the alien that LeBron must be really good at this. Casual fans saw just how talented Donovan Mitchell was in the playoffs by the way he leapt off the screen on a court he shared with Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and Rudy Gobert.

Luka Doncic doesn’t pass the alien test. He doesn’t leap off the screen, doesn’t look capable of taking over every possession. If you watched NCAA basketball this year, you probably tuned into an Arizona game and saw DeAndre Ayton. Ayton leaps off the screen. He is an Adonis. You see Ayton and think to yourself, “Wow, that is a man God chiseled out of stone to play basketball.”

You see Luka Doncic, and he looks like an engineering student. His height doesn’t immediately stand out even though he’s 6'8" because he’s surrounded by other basketball players, and he’s a little thick. He’s not going to take three strides from half court and get to the rim, not going to leap out of the arena, not going to make plays with sheer elite athleticism.

But that doesn’t mean Doncic is unathletic. The height and size advantage is real, and he already knows how to use those advantages. Doncic uses his physicality to draw a lot of contact and free throws. He has 278 free throw attempts on 573 field goal attempts this year, an awesome 48.5% free throw rate. He uses his height to pass over and around opponents, and it lets him get his step-back jumper off with ease — even if those aren’t particularly great shots yet and you’d like to see more from catch-and-shoot opportunities.

Doncic is a good athlete — just not an elite one. He’s not going to be able to use his athleticism alone to create plays. But you also don’t get the sense that his athleticism will limit him. Panathinaikos double teamed Doncic to get the ball out of his hands, nice respect for a 19-year-old, but Doncic usually didn’t have the physicality or burst to get the ball back. He’s not a player that’s going to take the ball at the top of the key and just run past a defender, but he might use his physicality to run through him.

Just because elite athleticism is not a strength for Doncic does not mean it must be a weakness.

Intangibles

The basketball IQ and intangibles are what really separate Doncic from the pack. That’s especially true when you consider that he’s playing with professionals and not just 19- and 20-year-olds still learning the game. Doncic has a feel for the game that transcends most other prospects and gives him a very high floor. It’s really hard to see him fail in the NBA. He understands the game so well and is good enough at so many things that he’ll surely be useful.

Doncic is a leader on Real Madrid, on both ends of the courts. He’s constantly chirping at teammates, communicating with them, getting them to the right spot. That was true on his EuroBasket team with Slovenia last summer, too. And that’s really impressive. Real Madrid is one of the biggest athletic clubs in the world, and Doncic’s older teammates defer to him. At EuroBasket, Doncic played alongside Goran Dragic, who is nothing short of a legend by Slovenian basketball standards, and yet the two shared leadership and communication side-by-side. Both made big plays with the game on the line, and it was Doncic who triumphant teammates carried off the court after a big win. That tells you a lot about what those players think of their teenage teammate.

Doncic plays with an incredible confidence for a guy in his situation. He didn't shy away from the moment with Slovenia last summer, nor in the Euroleague playoffs, and he often comes up biggest as the pressure rises. He is ready for the big stage, and he’s already played there for years. Of course Doncic made the dagger three in the final minute to knock Panathinaikos out of Euroleague. Who else?

A lot of what you see from Luka Doncic might remind you of Lonzo Ball — you can decide whether that’s good or bad. Neither is an elite NBA athlete, but both have good size they use to their advantage, and both are incredibly smart players who just know how to play the game. Both tend to limit shots to either threes or attempts at the rim, and both move the ball along and pick up secondary “hockey assists” as they see the court differently. They even share the step-back jumper, although Doncic’s doesn’t look like he’s never shot a ball before.

Like Lonzo Ball, you get the sense that Doncic will make his teammates better, that he’ll help them rise to the occasion. He’ll create better looks for them, easier chances that will get their confidence up, and they’ll look to him naturally as a leader. And like Lonzo Ball, it feels like Doncic will be even better when he’s around better teammates.

Doncic is not meant to come stateside, dominate the ball, and score 24 points a game like Donovan Mitchell. If you’re looking for that player, you’re sure to be disappointed. Instead, something like 16 points, 8 boards, and 5 assists seems like a typical Doncic line, with winning plays along the way. Think about what someone like Al Horford has brought to the Celtics over the last month. This is a guy who will help his team win. And for a team that’s already winning, he’ll help them even more.

That’s tricky in the NBA draft, because that may or may not be the case early on for Luka Doncic. If a team like Memphis wins the lottery and throws Doncic into a lineup with a healthy Mike Conley and Marc Gasol, you can expect him to be successful right away. So too a team like the Cavs or Celtics, if their long odds hit. Yes, Doncic would absolutely be playing valuable playoff minutes right now on either of those teams.

But the odds are much more likely that teams like the Hawks, Magic, Suns, or Kings will end up at the top of the lottery. There Doncic may be asked to do a lot more, and he may not shine as brightly. Or, maybe, he’ll elevate his teammates to another level.

Player comparisons

No draft profile is complete without a few ridiculous comparisons. Gordon Hayward and Ben Simmons come to mind. The Hayward comp is obvious. They’re the same size and build, and Hayward’s 20/5/4 line as a point forward the past three seasons looks like a decent expectation for Doncic. Simmons is taller and more of a creator, but he uses his size and physicality in a way Doncic could succeed in the NBA despite not fitting a typical mold.

If you want to go back a little further, what about Larry Bird or Scottie Pippen? Bird is another player with similar build, and he was similarly cerebral and a step ahead of the game. Pippen was something in between a star and a role player, a hybrid point forward who filled up the box score. Obviously Doncic does not have Larry’s Hall of Fame shooting or Scottie’s all-time defense, but you can see a faint comparison stylistically.

My favorite old-timey comp might be John Havlicek. Could Luka Doncic be a modern-day Hondo? Prime Havlicek averaged 23/7/6, played smart team basketball, and played on a lot of winning teams. Havlicek won a championship in eight of his sixteen Hall of Fame seasons. He was the consummate team player and winner. Maybe that’s the sort of player Doncic could become: a guy who works hard, passes well, rebounds, scores when needed, and just plays darn good basketball.

DONCIC STEALS IT! DONCIC STOLE THE BALL!! IT’S ALL OVER! IT’S ALL OVER!! … Yeah. I can dig it.

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