How Could We Have Known?
Projecting is hard. No, not the projecting I do with my insecurities as a defense mechanism every single damn day, that’s super easy you dope. No, the other one; attempting to forecast how teenagers will adjust to competing at the highest level against insane athletes with basketball iq’s far exceeding my non-basketball iq, their staying power, and the heights their careers will eventually reach. That shit is impossible because people are unpredictable and skill growth isn’t a linear thing. We are all incredibly stupid and life is ridiculous and unforgiving. Basketball is also wacky in the same sense, however, it’s also so wonderful and altruistic and empowering and fun, aside from nights whenever the Mavs are playing road games. I’ll say it: the Mavs, sans Luka (he is omnipotent and never in the wrong) stink on those nights. That’s a bold take but I stand by it. Ya see, what I am saying seems well reasoned and thought out, backed up by decades of proof, aided by countless examples of unexpected hoop mastery and equally surprising faltering of once-promising young players. The fella pictured below has other ideas:
As we all know, I am a big doofus. Shame on me for relying on intuition and a myriad of evidence. I, along with the dozens of others on #nbatwitter who pour countless hours into a watching and analyzing these prospects annually, clearly are so wrong and also stupid. 95% accuracy is apparently the gold standard, so, fuck. Fucking fuck. Let’s just say that Luka Doncic is the 5% Phillips’ missed on. Let us assume that calling Luka Doncic a “2nd round pick (as a point guard prospect),” implying on multiple occasions that Luka has already reached his peak, or even saying that “Allonzo Trier is better than Luka Doncic,” (yes, that Allonzo Trier, the one that is 461st out of 466 eligible players in ESPN’s real plus-minus) was just a rare blunder. That’s his 5%. The question that arises then is this: could we have known? Could we have known that the 19 year old Slovenian prodigy, MVP of the second best basketball league in the world, was gonna be good? No, heavens no, in fact.
It is NOT the fault of the Luka-disbelievers, the GM of the Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, or Atlanta Hawks that Luka has been this good. McDonough, Vlade, and Schlenk were at a disadvantage, plain and simple. It’s not as if all of Real Madrid’s games are streamed internationally. Plus, isn’t Real Madrid a soccer team? I don’t know man, seems sketchy to me. There also weren’t particularly any ready-made Luka Doncic highlights on the world wide web to devour. And the players he’s been going up against in Europe? Yuck. Former NBA players and a bunch of other high level guys that could potentially have a role in the league if they wanted to make that move? No thanks. Blame a lack of visibility for European basketball and stinky players if you’re gonna point the finger at anyone or anything, coward.
Luka “Great Value-Hedo Turkoglu” Doncic was more of an unknown than we would like to admit. Was there tape of him battling against Jim Boehim’s vaunted 2–3 zone as the Carrier Dome roars? No. Did we see how he handled the adversity and emotional umbrage that the Cameron Crazies threw his way? Nope. Did Luka have to try and score against Tony Bennett’s ballyhooed pack-line defense? Nada. Does the footage of Luka traveling to Ames, Iowa on a Friday night to clash with the Cyclones exist? Nay. Do we have a shred of evidence that Luka could have held up against college basketball powerhouses such as Steve Alford’s mighty UCLA Bruins? I think not. So, really, it’s not anyone’s fault that Doncic wasn’t selected number 1 overall is last June’s NBA Draft. Luka never had to endure the momentum shift a Brad Davidson charge provides. That’s on him, not us. We will chalk that up as a 5% miss and move on, continuing to nail the other 95% without a shadow of a doubt.
