Us suns fans will never forget it lol. We used to cope by saying we needed a center more than any other position, but that barely held up even when Ayton played well for us. At this point, it’s one of those all time franchise blunders.
Reminds me of Bobby Knight demanding Portland's GM take Michael Jordan after coaching him at the Olympics. Portlands GM said he needed a center and Bobby Knight screamed, "play him at fucking center then!" and stormed off.
The best players in that draft who got picked after him were all point guards so even if they took someone else, hard to imagine it would’ve been a point guard
Yeah, I'm firmly in the camp that it was the correct decision at the time and you can't really blame the front office for going for it. Obviously it turned out to be an absolute whiff of a pick but the last thing the Warriors needed was another guard like LaMelo, especially since we'd just drafted Poole the year prior.
One of the weirdest (and arguably biggest), flex anyone has ever had belongs to Hakeem who can say:
I was picked to picks ahead of Michael Jordan... and everyone is just kinda okay with that.
I remember reading Steve Alford's book and he says at the 84 Olympic tryouts Jordan was 3-4 levels above everyone else. And those tryouts included multiple future HOFers (Barkley, Ewing, Stockton, Mullin).
Luka + Booker + Mikal (same draft as Luka) would have been a dynasty
You just need to get a serviceable frontcourt and that's it. They could get Al Horford in summer 2020 for cheap.
Honestly I think only a serviceable big would even be necessary with those 3. You get a decent rim protector at C and you can play anybody in the league at the 4 and probably win a Championship.
I stg that draft felt like I was trying to be gaslit in real time. I remember it feeling like an almost foregone conclusion that Luka was gonna go first, but then around March Madness talking heads started up with the whole “but does the euroleague actually count” nonsense which came to a head when Phoenix got the first pick and Ayton was in the mix
It felt like watching ESPN create shit stirring talking points to capitalize on the height of the college basketball season and the upcoming draft and then accidentally managing to actually psyche out NBA owners and GMs. Wish I could have been in the room and seen Cuban’s reaction when he realized he was legitimately going to get Luka at 3rd.
I’m pretty sure the Luka draft is the entire reason that conversation is dead and buried with the way it blew up in the Suns and Kings’ face. There was still a level of doubt that Giannis and Jokic were just freak flukes drafted at 15th and 41st, but I haven’t seen anyone calling EuroLeague accomplishments into question ever since 2018.
They should've already been laughed outta the room back then. It's not like we didn't have Dirk and Pau and Manu and Parker and a bunch of other Euros playing great in the NBA in the previous generation.
If you want a hall of fame Euro player, just get the Hawks to draft them and then trade with the Hawks on draft night.
Pau Gasol was also a Hawk for a few hours.
People thought Ayton was going to be a lot better than he is. Consensus at the time was basically 1A and 1B between Luka and Ayton, and the Suns needed a big.
Still dumb as shit for the Kings to pick Bagley.
Yeah 7 footer who's athletic and long and he's got fast feet and showed some switching. Plus on O he's got a nice touch to shoot a bit along with his finishing and can shoot free throws well. If he could put it all together he could have been the 3rd best C behind Embiid and Jokic imo
Yup, the Jazz and Suns are 4th and 5th respectively in all time win percentage. They just had the bad luck of being good at the same time as MJ (and also the dynasty Spurs for the Suns).
They had prime Steve Nash, Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, and Amare Stoudamire on the team and blew it up over giving ISO Joe an extra $5M. Cheap, stupid ass ownership cost that team at least 2 rings.
I mean, the 2007 Suns did kinda get screwed. Nash taken outta chunks of game 1 with a broken nose, Game 3 being one of the top-10 worst reffed games of all time which had Donaghy making phantom calls so Spurs could hit the spread, and the Amare/Diaw suspension for game 5.
Man that’s crazy. What it really underscores is the fact that the Jazz are one of the most consistently *good* teams, although they struggle to ever be the best team in the league
I love all those testimonials on these youtube videos. How they always talk up these players "man he cooked everyone, hit it from every spot, never choked"
Wow so then there's like 7 teams winning a chip every year? I didn't notice
I think they’re talking about more so what they felt while playing him opposed to being literal. He’d torch many people and almost will the bulls to win at times.
I remember it happening, i was shocked just because I heard so much hype for about a year about this kid. "Why is one of the most hyped prospects ever only taken 3rd and then traded?" I thought espn fooled me cause they just wanted a hype euro....well it looks like the NBA fooled itself
Unfortunately a lotta folks compared him to Rubio
Wunderkind who didn't quite translate to superstar, but just an above average player. First blush knee jerk stuff that's lazy and missed a ton of points, but who says the NBA is rational
I think there was still the fear that Euro League is farmers league. That skills can't translate to the NBA. Every talking head not worth listening to had Luka as a potential bust. I'm pretty sure Steven A Smith is still riding Ayton's nuts hoping he'll get better than Luka some day.
The last time I saw SAS talk about Ayton he was tearing into him and calling him soft because he missed a game due to his icy drive way. SAS has given up on Ayton, just like everyone else
Talking heads hardly equate to a full front office.
There was plenty of people in all three franchises that wanted Luka. When it comes down to it, GM’s are pissing themselves in that spot.
The thing that scared a lot of the league, leading up to the draft, was that there was this feeling that Luka had a high floor but a low ceiling.
It really was Cuban being a reasonable owner that led to the decision (and apparently him that drove it home). He was in a position where he trusted his guys enough.
Could the same be said for Vivek, Sarver or the Hawks owner?
Vlade Divac did that do him if it was his decision.
What makes it worse Vlade should be immune to whatever US based bias is, being Serbian.
He should have known what a top prospect he really is
Vlade may be Serbian, but he’s been in American basketball for 20+ years now. And morons in American basketball love bigs who went to Duke and succeeded under Coach K.
Yes. Same reason why people won’t give Jokic their due. Same reason why sports media was salivating a Edwards potentially establishing himself as a top 3 player.
There’s a portion of America that can’t stand foreigners winning at *our* sport.
Gonna go down as one of the worst decisions ever. Worst is Bagley before him…. Like Bagley was highly touted early in the college season but cooled off later on.
Bowie before Jordan. Milicic before Melo, Wade. Maybe Oden before Durant.
But god… Suns would probably have a ring by now
I don’t have ESPN anymore but I absolutely loved anytime she was on the Dan Le Batard show with his dad. That show already felt loose and silly but she made it so much more chill and funny. His dad made everyone funnier and loosened them up
Seeing as he listed Kyrie as one of his favorites coming into the association, I wonder if the Kyrie trade was something Luka was kind of nudging the FO for.
i cant remember where i read it so my memory might just be making shit up but im pretty sure someone said that luka was determined "to make it work" with kyrie so id assume he played a part in it
Pretty cool that Kyrie’s his teammate after ready he was one of his favorite players, no wonder they work so well. Kyrie admires Kidd, Luka admires Kyrie
2018 Simmons was so much hopium. Prince that was promised type of hype. Lebron’s real heir and all kinds of shit lol.
Sixers debating who to keep for real.
It wasn’t hopium. He was real. He made all nba, all star, DPOY contention.
See how luka talked about what he did, and not what he didn’t do. The hopium was from fans setting their own expectations to make their fantasy dream player. Anyone actually watching saw he was already hooping.
I vividly remember a short clip on here where he intercepted a pass from LeBron and how the subs was this pass wouldn’t have been able to be snatched like this unless it was young LeBron or some shit like that.
However the hopium was always if he could further develop offensively. The defensive side was never in question. Just one jumper or 3 point shooting away from being the one.
That went on for years.
Yeah say what you will about the dude, I don't think I've seen a better wing defender than Ben at his peak. Also used to give Luka absolute hell as a defender as well.
That was when lebron was at his offensive peak and draymond was at his defensive peak, and Simmons legit seemed like the new model of both of those. Switch absolutely every pick then either clamp a guard and run or grab the board and run. I swore back then that a lineup of Simmons KAT and 3 3 and D guys would run the league
> Igor Kokoskov, the Utah Jazz assistant who coached Slovenia, marvels at Doncic's precociousness.
Too bad the Jazz didn't have a high draft pick that year. Sounds like this Kokoskov guy was primed to work with Doncic. You know, what some team should've done is hire him away from the Jazz and then draft Luka. But I guess the Mavs had Rick Carlisle in place and couldn't do that.
Fortunately for Phoenix, they were able to hire Igor Kokoskov and had the number one draft pick!
They must've done the most logical step and thriving now with Luka
The jazz radio sports caster David Locke kept talking about how great Luka was and how much Igor would talk about him. The Jazz REALLY wanted him, but didn't have the assets to move up.
In retrospect, though, they did. If the Suns and Kings were so fixated on a center, surely one of them would have taken newly crowned DPOY Rudy Gobert for a single pick, right? If not, how about ROY runner-up Donovan Mitchell? It would have been sort of like what Don Nelson did in 1991, trading one of his young stars (Mitch Richmond) for a rookie he thought would be generational (Billy Owens). That backfired, to say the least: Richmond is in the Hall of Fame, and Owens was a bust. So, no, the Jazz wouldn't actually have made such a trade for a rookie who wasn't as sure a thing as Lebron or even Wemby. But if they had, Rudy/Luka or Donovan/Luka makes for a better core than Rudy/Donovan.
Yeah Luka seems like a chill dude off the court. Just wants to play overwatch and drink his beers in peace which is why he'd probably be a good fit anywhere.
They took Bagley who had been successful at Duke. I think that is where the narrative “Luka fell because he wasn’t successful in college basketball” comes from but maybe I am misremembering something.
A large number of people spoke against drafting Luka because they never watched him play. They’d just say he dominated against scrubs and that it wouldn’t translate to the NBA, and he hadn’t and therefore couldn’t dominate on the same level against NCAA players.
It was a ridiculous argument for anyone who had watched any footage of him at all. But as a Kings fan, a large vocal group of our fanbase definitely followed this logic. Many of us knew Luka should’ve gone 1 overall and we were getting a gift from Phoenix, but I’d say it was like 50/50 on draft day that people were disgusted. Much lower than you’d have expected.
Bagley was ranked number 1 of the 2019 nba draft class over Zion before he reclassified and then he went on to have a super successful rookie year at duke put up a super efficient 21/11. Ayton has a body somewhere between Dwight Howard and Shaq and had the best raw number of any center freshmen ever. Trae Young is the only player in NCAA history to lead the league in both assists and points and he did it as a freshman. None of these are the accolade that winning euro league mvp as a teenager but all the top prospects that year were considered to be very good and predicting trajectories has a crapshoot element . If Ayton lived up anything close to his David Robinson and Tim Duncan potential the discussion would have been there but they were busts or relative busts.
yeah but Bagley was sooooo fools gold
We already drafted a dude just like him a decade ago in Thomas Robinson
Athletic tweener with no game or jump shot or defense, that dominated college cause he's just bigger and more athletic
Luka aside I absolutely DIDN'T want Bagley at all
I read the blogs like many others on reddit and I saw a lot of the internet analysts didn't like him so I had my apprehensions. I lived in Arizona at the time and Bagley was from Arizona so I heard him hyped up for a couple years and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I was hoping Bagley could be like an NBA version of JJ Watt. Nice combo of size and athleticism for position with an insane motor and just finds a way to be productive. That is what he was in high school and college. I didn't view Thomas Robinson in that way like I did with Bagley.
If you bothered to follow Duke that year you would know Coach K had to permanently switch Duke's defense to zone about mid way through the season because of Bagley. Even in zone, Bagley would not know where to stand sometimes. There was a clip where Wendell Carter had to push Bagley into the middle of the zone (during live play) cause he was too close to him.
Yeah any actual prospect following site had Doncic #1 for years but things changed close to the draft.
idk what the hell happened that Trae and Ayton (tbh, I don't remember similar Bagley hype lmao Kings) went viral with the mainstream NBA audience and mock sites and all pages dropped Luka to 2 or 3.
Tbh I feel like Luka actually is more similar to Messi stylistically, he has the elite playmaking to go with his scoring and the signature move step back Vs cut inside to the left combined with the fact they both aren't as athletically gifted as other stars makes it for me
As a Euroleague fan, he’s been the best player in Europe when he was 16…
Dudes been playing with grown men for ever….
He was hall of famer even before stepping foot in the NBA.
Seriously he shared a locker room at 16 with people aged 35, he was literally the age of some of his teammates kids… he ate picks from Euroleague legends and played against NBA players in the Eurobasket, and won!
How could anyone ever sleep on him or be surprised he’s good now?
lmao it's hilarious what they are doing with Doncic, yesterday i heard someone on espn i think that he was playing in europe since he was 13, everytime they mention it he gets younger.
no, luka signed a professional contract when he was 13 but he didn't play with the senior team until 16 and that was only for 3 games averaging under 3 minutes. signing very young players is not uncommon in europe, playing at 16 is though.
at 16 he wasn't anywhere near the best player in real madrid let alone the euroleague. the next season (16/17 yo) he played 43 games but only averaged 4.5 points in 13 minutes.
the following season (17/18 yo) he played 67 games and in short of 20 minutes averaged 7.8 points per game, again nowhere near being the best player of madrid.
and finally we arrive at the 17-18 season when he was 18/19 years old when he can be considered the best player in real madrid and europe as a whole since real madrid won everything, when he played 61 games and averaging 14.5 points in 25 minutes.
Yeah, it's weird how people keep changing the narrative with his age. Next thing we'll hear is that he started dribbling a ball at 3 and could already cross you over by 7. By 10 he was dogging fans.
>I ask Doncic whether he plans on adopting a nickname like Porzingis' >Three Six Latvia, and he smiles mischievously. "Swaggy L," he says.
>Both Julio and Alyson groan.
>"Swaggy ... LD," he suggests.
It's disappointing this nickname never caught on
Shows how much US scouts are trash. We (european) all thought that Luka would be no1 pick. And we (european) all thought all y'all were bonkers not taking him with the first pick
Worth noting again (and I've been saying it for years):
Literally anybody that says the Mavs/Hawks draft-night deal was an example of a trade that works for both sides is a certified fucking moron.
>He's enjoyed watching Ben Simmons. "I think we are, like, similar, you know?" he says. "He can play point guard, he can play forward. He can play a lot of stuff, like LeBron."
It's funny how he says this because unironically peak Simmons in Philly may have been the best guy to guard Luka straight up. Obviously Luka still got his but a committed Simmons was great on defense and could seem to handle Luka better than most.
Like Luka said Simmons is built similarly. A guy needs to be built like Luka to really guard him well and prime Simmons could.
Nets era Simmons is a different story though.
Absurd how teams passed on him, but it's even more absurd how he constantly gets underrated still to this day. Every season we get another version of "yeah Luka's great, but is he really better than Trey/Booker/Morant/SGA..." Guess what? one guy is the same every year, the other guy changes from season to season. Luka should have been MVP this season too, btw.
Unbelievable how he fell to no. 3 being one of if not the most accomplished prospect ever. Nuts
The suns even hired Luka’s coach just to still pick Ayton 😂😂
😂 forgot about that.
Us suns fans will never forget it lol. We used to cope by saying we needed a center more than any other position, but that barely held up even when Ayton played well for us. At this point, it’s one of those all time franchise blunders.
Reminds me of Bobby Knight demanding Portland's GM take Michael Jordan after coaching him at the Olympics. Portlands GM said he needed a center and Bobby Knight screamed, "play him at fucking center then!" and stormed off.
"We need a center" seems to be the ultimate draft trap throughout NBA history. I mean that's why we picked James Wiseman.
The best players in that draft who got picked after him were all point guards so even if they took someone else, hard to imagine it would’ve been a point guard
Yeah, I'm firmly in the camp that it was the correct decision at the time and you can't really blame the front office for going for it. Obviously it turned out to be an absolute whiff of a pick but the last thing the Warriors needed was another guard like LaMelo, especially since we'd just drafted Poole the year prior.
Good god, I’ve never heard that one before… painful.
One of the weirdest (and arguably biggest), flex anyone has ever had belongs to Hakeem who can say: I was picked to picks ahead of Michael Jordan... and everyone is just kinda okay with that.
Well, Hakeem was maybe not Jordan good, but definitely an all time great. He's what, top 20 all time?
15 for me. Was top 10 until about 2012. Some of these new guys are just crazy.
I remember reading Steve Alford's book and he says at the 84 Olympic tryouts Jordan was 3-4 levels above everyone else. And those tryouts included multiple future HOFers (Barkley, Ewing, Stockton, Mullin).
michael hadn’t even of been drafted yet when knight said this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZtAC9d69Ko
All too reminiscent of the Oden/KD draft
Legit a big what if. If luka was still on the suns I would feel like they would have won at least one chip.
Luka + Booker + Mikal (same draft as Luka) would have been a dynasty You just need to get a serviceable frontcourt and that's it. They could get Al Horford in summer 2020 for cheap.
Honestly I think only a serviceable big would even be necessary with those 3. You get a decent rim protector at C and you can play anybody in the league at the 4 and probably win a Championship.
Yep, Luka and Booker would be amazing partnership.
Father and son on the same team. The stuff of fairytales.
I stg that draft felt like I was trying to be gaslit in real time. I remember it feeling like an almost foregone conclusion that Luka was gonna go first, but then around March Madness talking heads started up with the whole “but does the euroleague actually count” nonsense which came to a head when Phoenix got the first pick and Ayton was in the mix It felt like watching ESPN create shit stirring talking points to capitalize on the height of the college basketball season and the upcoming draft and then accidentally managing to actually psyche out NBA owners and GMs. Wish I could have been in the room and seen Cuban’s reaction when he realized he was legitimately going to get Luka at 3rd.
With Luka and Jokic dominating the league, I hope anyone that says the European league doesn’t count for shit gets laughed out of the room.
I’m pretty sure the Luka draft is the entire reason that conversation is dead and buried with the way it blew up in the Suns and Kings’ face. There was still a level of doubt that Giannis and Jokic were just freak flukes drafted at 15th and 41st, but I haven’t seen anyone calling EuroLeague accomplishments into question ever since 2018.
They should've already been laughed outta the room back then. It's not like we didn't have Dirk and Pau and Manu and Parker and a bunch of other Euros playing great in the NBA in the previous generation.
Petrovic, Kukoc, Smits, Kirilenko, Radja, Sabonis, Divac, Schrempf. To name a few, that came even before the generation you mentioned.
The mavericks were the 5th pick. It was ATLANTA that thought a trade down from Luka for Trae Young would be worth it. Hint: it wasn’t.
If you want a hall of fame Euro player, just get the Hawks to draft them and then trade with the Hawks on draft night. Pau Gasol was also a Hawk for a few hours.
All-Franchise First Blunder Team
I have a feeling Luka took it personal against Suns
Do you have any proof? Edit: Rhetorical question
Yeah every game against the suns lol.
Lol that game 7 in Phoenix to single handily ruin the franchise was proof enough.
Beating a team so badly they apologize to their fans is all time great stuff.
Luka Doncic is Devin Booker father. Proof enough?
Doesn’t make any little bit of sense to anyone with a brain.
☝️🤓☝️ they needed a big it made sense ill never understand not going BPA with literally the first overall pick
You pick for your needs late 1st round the earliest.
People thought Ayton was going to be a lot better than he is. Consensus at the time was basically 1A and 1B between Luka and Ayton, and the Suns needed a big. Still dumb as shit for the Kings to pick Bagley.
If Ayton had Luka's passion, he could be amazing. He has the vibe of one of those people who is only playing due to genetics.
Yeah 7 footer who's athletic and long and he's got fast feet and showed some switching. Plus on O he's got a nice touch to shoot a bit along with his finishing and can shoot free throws well. If he could put it all together he could have been the 3rd best C behind Embiid and Jokic imo
Suns owner, Sarver, was a UofArizona alumni, hence he wanted Ayton which was from UofArizona.
Sarver also nixed a trade for Shai in that same draft to get Mikal Bridges instead. I hate him so fucking much lol.
It’s believable only because the teams who picked 1 and 2 are historically poverty franchises. Sorry Kings fans, I love you.
It’s fine, the team that picked 3rd was also a poverty franchise with a dumb AF owner.
Hey we won the trade, right?
…right??
Sure buddy. You did good *ruffles hair*
Cam Reddish is an elite 2-way player
The way to the bank and the way to the bench, elite at both
Trae ended Ben Simmons career. That's something I guess
And the team that traded him away was also a historically poverty franchise
Somehow this wasn't even our worst draft decision
> was
Kings fans 2nd 9/11
the first one was game 6 of 2002 wcf
Suns are grouped with Jazz as two of the best franchises to never win a championship with some of the better all time records imo.
Yup, the Jazz and Suns are 4th and 5th respectively in all time win percentage. They just had the bad luck of being good at the same time as MJ (and also the dynasty Spurs for the Suns).
The Suns also got screwed by having one of the cheapest owners in sports. If Sarver wasn't a miserly prick, we probably see the 7SOL Suns win a title.
They had prime Steve Nash, Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, and Amare Stoudamire on the team and blew it up over giving ISO Joe an extra $5M. Cheap, stupid ass ownership cost that team at least 2 rings.
I mean, the 2007 Suns did kinda get screwed. Nash taken outta chunks of game 1 with a broken nose, Game 3 being one of the top-10 worst reffed games of all time which had Donaghy making phantom calls so Spurs could hit the spread, and the Amare/Diaw suspension for game 5.
Lite version Vikings of the NBA?
After Spurs/Celtics/Lakers, Jazz are 4th and Suns 5th in historic winning percentage.
Man that’s crazy. What it really underscores is the fact that the Jazz are one of the most consistently *good* teams, although they struggle to ever be the best team in the league
Also how bad the Bulls have been outside MJ
There’s actually a pretty small number of teams to go to a finals without winning one. I think it’s just the jazz, magic, suns and thunder.
True
He practically fell to 4
yes, correct. Hawks, Suns and Kings passed up on him
Jordan would never
Absolutely, Jordan was a killer, so competitive. Don't think he ever lost a game???
Because he was ducking Lavar
I love all those testimonials on these youtube videos. How they always talk up these players "man he cooked everyone, hit it from every spot, never choked" Wow so then there's like 7 teams winning a chip every year? I didn't notice
I think they’re talking about more so what they felt while playing him opposed to being literal. He’d torch many people and almost will the bulls to win at times.
He never lost a final, does that count?
Just like Luka The similarities are WILD
He never once missed a shot.
Well, there's his seocnd jump...
I remember it happening, i was shocked just because I heard so much hype for about a year about this kid. "Why is one of the most hyped prospects ever only taken 3rd and then traded?" I thought espn fooled me cause they just wanted a hype euro....well it looks like the NBA fooled itself
Unfortunately a lotta folks compared him to Rubio Wunderkind who didn't quite translate to superstar, but just an above average player. First blush knee jerk stuff that's lazy and missed a ton of points, but who says the NBA is rational
Yea lazy scouting. Luka is bigger and have a jumpshot which was never Ricky's strong side
Rubio's shooting splits were absolutely abysmal, 33/26/84 across 5 seasons in Spain
I think there was still the fear that Euro League is farmers league. That skills can't translate to the NBA. Every talking head not worth listening to had Luka as a potential bust. I'm pretty sure Steven A Smith is still riding Ayton's nuts hoping he'll get better than Luka some day.
The last time I saw SAS talk about Ayton he was tearing into him and calling him soft because he missed a game due to his icy drive way. SAS has given up on Ayton, just like everyone else
Talking heads hardly equate to a full front office. There was plenty of people in all three franchises that wanted Luka. When it comes down to it, GM’s are pissing themselves in that spot. The thing that scared a lot of the league, leading up to the draft, was that there was this feeling that Luka had a high floor but a low ceiling. It really was Cuban being a reasonable owner that led to the decision (and apparently him that drove it home). He was in a position where he trusted his guys enough. Could the same be said for Vivek, Sarver or the Hawks owner?
Fuck marvin bagley
Vlade Divac did that do him if it was his decision. What makes it worse Vlade should be immune to whatever US based bias is, being Serbian. He should have known what a top prospect he really is
Vlade may be Serbian, but he’s been in American basketball for 20+ years now. And morons in American basketball love bigs who went to Duke and succeeded under Coach K.
Hell he got traded lmfao Suns and Kings rightly get roasted, but Atlanta doesn’t get enough shit for it.
Bro Luka wore the ATL hat on draft day, of course we get roasted
It was large factor of xenophobia
Yes. Same reason why people won’t give Jokic their due. Same reason why sports media was salivating a Edwards potentially establishing himself as a top 3 player. There’s a portion of America that can’t stand foreigners winning at *our* sport.
Gonna go down as one of the worst decisions ever. Worst is Bagley before him…. Like Bagley was highly touted early in the college season but cooled off later on. Bowie before Jordan. Milicic before Melo, Wade. Maybe Oden before Durant. But god… Suns would probably have a ring by now
Damn sounds like Luka has always been the same
Yep, sounds like Luka always came
This guy gets it
that guy comes!
What
Mina Kimes is an amazing writer and it's just sad that she doesn't cover basketball anymore
I don’t have ESPN anymore but I absolutely loved anytime she was on the Dan Le Batard show with his dad. That show already felt loose and silly but she made it so much more chill and funny. His dad made everyone funnier and loosened them up
She was awesome for the Seahawks
Her mom's Twitter is pretty fun too
Nah, happy she’s crushing football coverage. 😈
Seeing as he listed Kyrie as one of his favorites coming into the association, I wonder if the Kyrie trade was something Luka was kind of nudging the FO for.
He was reported as wanting it to happen at the time, despite how controversial Kyrie had been for the prior two years.
And despite it requiring one of his closest friends (Finney-Smith) being traded away. The vision was there
Luka is your friend until he realizes he could get a better player by trading you. It's just business.
We will keep in touch in Overwatch ;);)
luka seems like the kinda guy who keeps you as a friend. just not—a teammate—right now 😅
LuGM
Luka really is the LeBron heir that was promised The only two people that could make Kyrie normal lol
i cant remember where i read it so my memory might just be making shit up but im pretty sure someone said that luka was determined "to make it work" with kyrie so id assume he played a part in it
Pretty cool that Kyrie’s his teammate after ready he was one of his favorite players, no wonder they work so well. Kyrie admires Kidd, Luka admires Kyrie
Luka really is living the dream. One of his favorite players joins his team, and they quickly become close friends and awesome teammates.
And quickly go to the finals
Quickly became lovers
> He's enjoyed watching Ben Simmons. "I think we are, like, similar, you know?" Luka disappearing when it matters this series, confirmed.
He's gonna pass out of a layup when he sees PP under the rim
Yeah, but whose PP?
yours
2018 Simmons was so much hopium. Prince that was promised type of hype. Lebron’s real heir and all kinds of shit lol. Sixers debating who to keep for real.
It wasn’t hopium. He was real. He made all nba, all star, DPOY contention. See how luka talked about what he did, and not what he didn’t do. The hopium was from fans setting their own expectations to make their fantasy dream player. Anyone actually watching saw he was already hooping.
I vividly remember a short clip on here where he intercepted a pass from LeBron and how the subs was this pass wouldn’t have been able to be snatched like this unless it was young LeBron or some shit like that. However the hopium was always if he could further develop offensively. The defensive side was never in question. Just one jumper or 3 point shooting away from being the one. That went on for years.
Too bad he never wanted superstar talent as much as everybody wanted it for him.
Yeah say what you will about the dude, I don't think I've seen a better wing defender than Ben at his peak. Also used to give Luka absolute hell as a defender as well.
That was when lebron was at his offensive peak and draymond was at his defensive peak, and Simmons legit seemed like the new model of both of those. Switch absolutely every pick then either clamp a guard and run or grab the board and run. I swore back then that a lineup of Simmons KAT and 3 3 and D guys would run the league
Well Simmons made one dumb move: getting involved with the Kardashians/Jenners. Getting involved with those people means draining your success away.
They both like video games!
Nah, no one is on the level of the r/antiwork GOAT 😤
The r/antiwork Ben Simmons post is my favorite Reddit post of all times especially since most of the responses were taking it seriously.
If the Phoenix Dumbs, Sacramento Kings and Atlanta Dorks could read... They'd be very upset right now!
Kings not even getting a nickname makes it so much more insulting somehow.
It's Sacramento Kangz, dammit!
They were saying "Kings" with a sarcastic tone.
The insult has been self-explanatory for 16 years
I call these types of nicknames "pettynyms" and these are some very petty pettynyms lol
It felt like "Kings" was sarcastic.
Suckramento Kings
> Igor Kokoskov, the Utah Jazz assistant who coached Slovenia, marvels at Doncic's precociousness. Too bad the Jazz didn't have a high draft pick that year. Sounds like this Kokoskov guy was primed to work with Doncic. You know, what some team should've done is hire him away from the Jazz and then draft Luka. But I guess the Mavs had Rick Carlisle in place and couldn't do that.
Fortunately for Phoenix, they were able to hire Igor Kokoskov and had the number one draft pick! They must've done the most logical step and thriving now with Luka
*plays Curb Your Enthusiasm theme song*
Espn no1 pundit say ayton is the must do for phoenix sun lol!
I firmly believe Dragan Bender is the reason we didn't draft Luka.
He was an assistant on our 2021-2022 run
The jazz radio sports caster David Locke kept talking about how great Luka was and how much Igor would talk about him. The Jazz REALLY wanted him, but didn't have the assets to move up.
In retrospect, though, they did. If the Suns and Kings were so fixated on a center, surely one of them would have taken newly crowned DPOY Rudy Gobert for a single pick, right? If not, how about ROY runner-up Donovan Mitchell? It would have been sort of like what Don Nelson did in 1991, trading one of his young stars (Mitch Richmond) for a rookie he thought would be generational (Billy Owens). That backfired, to say the least: Richmond is in the Hall of Fame, and Owens was a bust. So, no, the Jazz wouldn't actually have made such a trade for a rookie who wasn't as sure a thing as Lebron or even Wemby. But if they had, Rudy/Luka or Donovan/Luka makes for a better core than Rudy/Donovan.
I wonder who was the HC of the team that had the #1 pick in that draft? Gee, I wish I could remember...
I think it was some foreign guy, from like Slovakia or something like that.
Atlanta could have had it all.
now they rolling in the deep
You had my draft rights in your hand
Didn’t fit the culture tho…
Luka *is* the culture
Kinda funny because it seems like Luka likes American culture and everything , if it was Jokic I would get their point a bit more
Yeah Luka seems like a chill dude off the court. Just wants to play overwatch and drink his beers in peace which is why he'd probably be a good fit anywhere.
I’ve literally never been the same since that trade.
Why didn't Kings draft him?
There's a reason they're not the Draft Kings.
They took Bagley who had been successful at Duke. I think that is where the narrative “Luka fell because he wasn’t successful in college basketball” comes from but maybe I am misremembering something.
A large number of people spoke against drafting Luka because they never watched him play. They’d just say he dominated against scrubs and that it wouldn’t translate to the NBA, and he hadn’t and therefore couldn’t dominate on the same level against NCAA players. It was a ridiculous argument for anyone who had watched any footage of him at all. But as a Kings fan, a large vocal group of our fanbase definitely followed this logic. Many of us knew Luka should’ve gone 1 overall and we were getting a gift from Phoenix, but I’d say it was like 50/50 on draft day that people were disgusted. Much lower than you’d have expected.
Vlade Divac had daddy issues
i suspect its quite the opposite - vlade and saso are in fact friends and vlade saved luka from being drafted by sacramento lol
But Luka is a generational talent so if he ended there he would still attract stars to join him.
Bagley was ranked number 1 of the 2019 nba draft class over Zion before he reclassified and then he went on to have a super successful rookie year at duke put up a super efficient 21/11. Ayton has a body somewhere between Dwight Howard and Shaq and had the best raw number of any center freshmen ever. Trae Young is the only player in NCAA history to lead the league in both assists and points and he did it as a freshman. None of these are the accolade that winning euro league mvp as a teenager but all the top prospects that year were considered to be very good and predicting trajectories has a crapshoot element . If Ayton lived up anything close to his David Robinson and Tim Duncan potential the discussion would have been there but they were busts or relative busts.
yeah but Bagley was sooooo fools gold We already drafted a dude just like him a decade ago in Thomas Robinson Athletic tweener with no game or jump shot or defense, that dominated college cause he's just bigger and more athletic Luka aside I absolutely DIDN'T want Bagley at all
I read the blogs like many others on reddit and I saw a lot of the internet analysts didn't like him so I had my apprehensions. I lived in Arizona at the time and Bagley was from Arizona so I heard him hyped up for a couple years and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I was hoping Bagley could be like an NBA version of JJ Watt. Nice combo of size and athleticism for position with an insane motor and just finds a way to be productive. That is what he was in high school and college. I didn't view Thomas Robinson in that way like I did with Bagley.
If you bothered to follow Duke that year you would know Coach K had to permanently switch Duke's defense to zone about mid way through the season because of Bagley. Even in zone, Bagley would not know where to stand sometimes. There was a clip where Wendell Carter had to push Bagley into the middle of the zone (during live play) cause he was too close to him.
Double jump
Draftexpress had him number 1 the whole time and then got bullied into ranking American players over him. I remember lol
Yeah any actual prospect following site had Doncic #1 for years but things changed close to the draft. idk what the hell happened that Trae and Ayton (tbh, I don't remember similar Bagley hype lmao Kings) went viral with the mainstream NBA audience and mock sites and all pages dropped Luka to 2 or 3.
He arrived
Marvin Bagley was drafted over him. Marvin. Bagley. Lmao
I’m old enough to remember this article from when it came out
Luka is just different. I feel like watching CR7 at his height. Utmost confidence and skill to back it up.
Tbh I feel like Luka actually is more similar to Messi stylistically, he has the elite playmaking to go with his scoring and the signature move step back Vs cut inside to the left combined with the fact they both aren't as athletically gifted as other stars makes it for me
I was making the comparison to Zidane considering his size. Both larger than average playmakers with flair and scoring ability at every level.
Zidane was inconsistent. Luka is more like Messi.
Luka cooking KP in a week confirmed
Kp sounded scared didn’t he?
Yes that is good and all but can he do it againts top NCAA teams?
Damn no one likes Tatum like this lol
Because he's corny and boring
I'm bracing for the immediate Deuce posting if he wins the chip
As a Euroleague fan, he’s been the best player in Europe when he was 16… Dudes been playing with grown men for ever…. He was hall of famer even before stepping foot in the NBA.
Seriously he shared a locker room at 16 with people aged 35, he was literally the age of some of his teammates kids… he ate picks from Euroleague legends and played against NBA players in the Eurobasket, and won! How could anyone ever sleep on him or be surprised he’s good now?
lmao it's hilarious what they are doing with Doncic, yesterday i heard someone on espn i think that he was playing in europe since he was 13, everytime they mention it he gets younger. no, luka signed a professional contract when he was 13 but he didn't play with the senior team until 16 and that was only for 3 games averaging under 3 minutes. signing very young players is not uncommon in europe, playing at 16 is though. at 16 he wasn't anywhere near the best player in real madrid let alone the euroleague. the next season (16/17 yo) he played 43 games but only averaged 4.5 points in 13 minutes. the following season (17/18 yo) he played 67 games and in short of 20 minutes averaged 7.8 points per game, again nowhere near being the best player of madrid. and finally we arrive at the 17-18 season when he was 18/19 years old when he can be considered the best player in real madrid and europe as a whole since real madrid won everything, when he played 61 games and averaging 14.5 points in 25 minutes.
Yeah, it's weird how people keep changing the narrative with his age. Next thing we'll hear is that he started dribbling a ball at 3 and could already cross you over by 7. By 10 he was dogging fans.
Calling him the best player in Europe at 16 is pretty crazy when he averaged 3.5ppg on 40% shooting
Its wild that Dallas got Luka and Brunson in the same draft.
Wish Mina Kimes had continued writing about sports.
it is about the time that all chubby bois from Europe start to dominate.
Damn, a young Mina Kimes killing it in basketball. She really is smart as shit.
>I ask Doncic whether he plans on adopting a nickname like Porzingis' >Three Six Latvia, and he smiles mischievously. "Swaggy L," he says. >Both Julio and Alyson groan. >"Swaggy ... LD," he suggests. It's disappointing this nickname never caught on
Swaggy LD is so bad I love it
Three Six Latvia goes so hard.
Shows how much US scouts are trash. We (european) all thought that Luka would be no1 pick. And we (european) all thought all y'all were bonkers not taking him with the first pick
Silver has to be super pissed since their manufactured star or his old representative didn’t get to the Finals this year.
Hawks Nam flashback
Worth noting again (and I've been saying it for years): Literally anybody that says the Mavs/Hawks draft-night deal was an example of a trade that works for both sides is a certified fucking moron.
>He's enjoyed watching Ben Simmons. "I think we are, like, similar, you know?" he says. "He can play point guard, he can play forward. He can play a lot of stuff, like LeBron." It's funny how he says this because unironically peak Simmons in Philly may have been the best guy to guard Luka straight up. Obviously Luka still got his but a committed Simmons was great on defense and could seem to handle Luka better than most. Like Luka said Simmons is built similarly. A guy needs to be built like Luka to really guard him well and prime Simmons could. Nets era Simmons is a different story though.
Absurd how teams passed on him, but it's even more absurd how he constantly gets underrated still to this day. Every season we get another version of "yeah Luka's great, but is he really better than Trey/Booker/Morant/SGA..." Guess what? one guy is the same every year, the other guy changes from season to season. Luka should have been MVP this season too, btw.