Luka Doncic Discussion: Lean Mean Slovenian Scoring Machine

WTF
SGA shoot 4 for 18 today and shot 17 FT
Yes it's regular season prize, but Luka better by a mile

 

wemby and jokic are deserving. SGA is not. that OKC team is absolutely stacked

 

As long as the Lakers don’t have the best record, they have a reason not to give it to Luka, just like they did with Shaq and Kobe, a travesty of media voting. When players voted Kareem, the best player in basketball then, got 6 MVPs after it was given to the media, no more MVPs for Cap lol

 

This 'Luka not in the top3' narrative is blown out of proportion just to create engagement. It's not like he was snubbed for cones.
It was a 4 player race, all deserving and with little to separate them. Luka was the odd man out, it's ok. Probably if he doesn't get injured and we finish 3rd, Jokic would be the one.

I can't say anything bad of Shai, Wemby or Jokic. We are witnessing greatness and I love to see it, more of it in the league please.
As for Luka, hope he takes it personal and leads us to #1 seed next season. Although he really needs to work on his refs' complaining and defense, those hurt his reputation around the league and I do believe it impacts his chances of getting an MVP too. Being an European doesn't help either but that he can't change

He also needs a ring soon, so that narrative doesn't start to build up. And I love that

 

yeah, as apparently the biggest luka fan on the board, even i'm not that mad about it. if you have him 4th after those guys, fine. i think he's better than SGA, and i think wemby playing under 30mpg should matter, but i don't know that i could win the basketball nerd fight on either front. fact is he's right there the game's best, and if he wasn't a laker, you'd hear more arguments on his behalf. i'm old enough to remember everyone telling me james harden was the greatest player ever.

 

I don't have him over Wemby or Joker, but I think SGA is a fraud on the deepest team in the league and gets egregious whistles. I think their 2nd unit would be a playoff team.

I have a problem with the moving goal posts on the qualifications. I think his defense was very good this year, as well.

 

I couldn't agree more. In the last 2 seasons OKC is 13-7 without Shai. He is a Free Throw merchant.

 

SGA shoots over 55% FG with 30+ppg. What that has to do with FTs? His efficiency is crazy. 39% from 3 and 88% FT. He almost had 50-40-90 while being a top scorer and the star of the league (meaning all eyes on him and defensive strategies thrown at him).

Yeah, I don't like the pursuit of FTs and how much leeway he gets to push others around. And I hope the league does something about it. But hell, we got Luka who seeks fouls a lot. Every single game he shoots 1 or 2 awful shots at least, just because he is seeking a foul. It's just how the game is nowadays and how superstars maximize their output.
Btw, Luka had MORE FT attempts than Shai.

You don't have to hate Shai to love Luka. They're both incredible and we are blessed to see them. Shai is super talented and is not even a j****** or something like that to deserve any hate. It's completely reasonable to think Luka is better than Shai, I think he is too but to ignore the impact of Shai in the unanimous best team of the league is unfair.
But greats always have haters, it's part of it. Kobe had them, Bron has them and Luka has them too.
But for the best player in the best team, with crazy efficiency, many games not even playing the Q4 (meaning his numbers would be even better) to be in the MVP conversation is indisputable. If it was Luka and us in their shoes, we would 100% back him as the MVP

 

If Luka had a game like this, he would get shat on from every side...
Not to mention his flopping and foul baiting, dude throws his body into a defender even when it makes no sense.

 

only thing i'll say is that you can't cite efficiency AND admit the whistle bias, as they're tightly connected. like, you don't get two phantom fouls per game and suddenly that efficiency stops looking legendary. it was the same with harden and wade. the whistle slowed down and the efficiency suddenly wasn't legendary. like, if he's officiated the same as just other superstars, i think his numbers and impact look more like donovan mitchell than michael jordan. this is the same argument i used to make about harden (except it was joe johnson and not donovan mitchell). the impact of knowing that a) nobody can touch you and b) you can literally shove off to get your shot is just game-changing.

and no, luka does NOT get that treatment from the refs. it's part of why he leads the league in techs (and not vice versa, which also would be an admission of poor officiating, ironically...).

 

Good post. And then you have Wemby, who's already the clear best defensive player in the world and gives you 25ppg on good efficiency as well. I personally think Wemby is already the best player in the league. Lowe did a podcast a month or so ago right after the Spurs played the Suns. He said that in Wemby's 30-ish minutes of play, the Suns made 5 shots within like 8 feet of the basket. 5, the entire time. That's absurd, he just completely wrecks your halfcourt offense. Who cares that he's playing less than 30 minutes a game, he's impacting the game as much or more than the other three guys even in limited minutes.

 

This. Shai is nowhere near as efficient if he doesn't get an unfair unethical whistle. Players and coaches talk about it even in post-games, they can't play regular let alone hard defense on Shai bc they get called for ticky tack crap where Shai flails and gets bogus calls. If players were allowed to defend him the way they do everybody else, Shai looks like a regular All Star: good but nowhere near an MVP. He does not deserve his MVP or accolades.

It's like Bam's 83. If he had stopped at 75 or so, he would be universally praised for an incredible game. But he and his team played unethical, terrible basketball, completely cheapening his "83" and looking like a clown in the process. Bam defenders might say, oh, but in 3 quarters he was amazing, how do you discount that? Easily, bc he cheapened and discounted it himself by that garbage clown show in the 4th.

Same story as SGA. Is he very good? Yes. But he and the refs cheapen his whole game with the clown crap they let him not only get away with but reward. It's like when Harden did that crap and they changed the rules. Here, they don't even have to change the rules, just call him like they do everybody else. Heck, call him like they call LeBron, and his FT's, FTA's, FG's, and FGA's all go way down.

Bottom line: Shai is an unethical clown of an "MVP". And that is not hate, it is a deserved description based on what he does on the court. If he didn't do that crap, he would be a very good All Star who doesn't get hate., but he brings it on himself, the same way Bam and Harden did.

 

Jokic mvp

 

Nailed it. You and Abeer both. I don't hate Shai at all. He seems like an incredibly nice guy and stays out of trouble. But, the refs and the media let him get away with everything and praise him to the point of overrating him. If he had to actually worry about getting called for an offensive foul his numbers would drop to regular all star level.

Luka shoots a lot of free throws because of the LeBron/Shaq effect. He is just a big guy. He gets his a lot and the refs don't call a lot of what should be a foul. I've seen him practically get mugged and not get the call. He just has to not let it get to him and start complaining. And yes, that's why he gets the techs.

Shai is like D Wade was where if you breath on him you are getting it called.

 

SGA is insufferable. one of the most boring superstars to watch in recent memory. i guess someone had to be the successor to wade and harden

it's funny how there was all this talk about how the league finally put in rules to do away with the whole jumping into defenders/kicking legs out/etc stuff to purposely try and draw fouls, but suddenly SGA came along and they just forgot all about that. he's basically wade minus some of the athleticism and with better shooting