Luka Doncic Is Already Historically Great at Age 25. Why Doesn’t He Get That Respect?

Luka Doncic turns 25 on Wednesday. Happy birthday, Luka!

Doncic is in the midst of another incredible statistical season. He's leading the league in scoring at 34.5 PPG. His 9.6 assists per game are a career high. His shooting is vastly improved, too, with career highs in both free-throw percentage (78.2%) and 3-point percentage (38.4%). His career-best 3.9 treys per game rate second in the NBA behind only Steph Curry and 16th most in NBA history.

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This season, Doncic had a career-best 123 Offensive Rating in his minutes. His 62% True Shooting is another career high, despite his free-throw rate actually dropping significantly. His 10.2 Box Plus-Minus (BPM) is yet another career-high, despite his lowest usage rate since his rookie season.

Oh by the way, Doncic is also playing more than ever. He's on pace to play 70 games, about as many as any star in today's era. That would be the most since his rookie year, too.

However you slice it, Luka Doncic is having the finest year of his young career, a career already filled with incredible numbers and achievements.

As he turns 25 and enters his prime NBA years, Doncic is poised to step even further into the league's spotlight as Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid all hit age 29 and start to age out of their primes.

By any real measure, Doncic is poised to be the next face of the NBA.

So why does it feel like Doncic is such a polarizing figure among fans and media alike? Why does he appear to get so little credit or respect for the incredible career he's having right before our eyes?

What Exactly IS Luka Doncic's reputation?

What sort of reputation does Luka Doncic have among fans and media?

I took to Twitter to solicit some responses. First, I straight up asked the crowd a simple question: do you like watching Luka Doncic play basketball?

The results are fairly overwhelming. So far, 64% of people responded with the "Yes, he's incredible" option. Folks like watching Luka play ball — at least they say they do.

So maybe the on-court product is favorable, but what about the discourse?

Next, I asked folks how they felt about Doncic. No further provocation — just what do you think of Luka? Now the responses were much broader.

Some responses were overwhelmingly positive:

• Dirk 2.0 upgraded in every way
• Sometimes he plays like the best player who ever existed
• The real-life AI machine learning of basketball
• Immaculate basketball IQ and purest skill

Naturally, there were negative comments too. A few folks called him fat and accused him of being a stat compiler. The usual internet riffraff.

But the majority of the comments had both positive and negative feedback.

• Incredibly gifted offense makes up for lackadaisical defense
• Generational talent, but also a generational whiner
• Talented – needs a ring – has most of the tools
• Quite a solo act. Not sure he’ll be able to win though

A few of the player comps in the replies struck me as both positive and negative too:

• Isn’t much better than Houston James Harden
• Luka Doncic = Josh Allen
• Generational talent. Generational whiner. Gen Z Kevin Durant
  

That's two past NBA MVPs and an NFL runner up — high praise! — but it's also three guys that are pretty polarizing in their own right, with some of the same criticism lobbed at them by both fans and media.

So Doncic is a generational talent with all the numbers and he makes his teammates better, but he gets criticized for whining too much and winning too little.

Let's start with the numbers.

Few in NBA History Have Matched Doncic's Career Before Age 25

As always, Luka's numbers are overwhelming.

On his 25th birthday, Doncic has a statistical profile unlike many others in NBA history.

Just seven players in NBA history have been selected to five All-Star Games before they turned 25: LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, Dwight Howard, Anthony Davis, Isiah Thomas, and Doncic. Only James has more berths (six).

Doncic has 66 triple-doubles in his career. That's second highest in league history before turning 25, ahead of Nikola Jokic (39) and Magic Johnson (59) and trailing only Oscar Robertson (89).

Just the scoring alone is pretty staggering.

Before even turning 25 years old, Doncic has already tallied 10,825 points.

Basketball Reference counts season ages by age as of February 1. By that definition, only 10 players in NBA history have scored more points through their age-25 season: LeBron, Durant, Melo, TMac, Kobe, Tatum, Jordan, Booker, Davis, and Shaq.

Of course, Doncic still has another couple months left this season — and per Basketball Reference, this is actually his "age-24" season, so he's got another full season to add to that tally too.

If we're looking at just points scored before a 25th birthday, only two men in history top Doncic: LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

Tallying points + rebounds + assists gives a similar result. Only LeBron, Durant, McGrady, and Kobe have more PRA through their age-25 season than Doncic has right now — and remember, he's got another 1.3 seasons to add to that tally!

Heck, this season alone is already shaping up to be historic. Doncic is averaging 34.5 PPG. Only seven players in NBA history have ever topped that figure over a full season: Wilt, Jordan, Kareem, Kobe, Elgin Baylor, Rick Barry, and James Harden.

These are not just any names. These are the elite of the elites in NBA history. Hallowed territory, even considering the somewhat inflated numbers in this offense-first era.

So why does it feel like Doncic's incredible numbers are just taken for granted?

Only twice in NBA history has a player averaged 32 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists over a full season, something Doncic is on pace to do this season with room for error.

The first was Michael Jordan in 1988-89. The Bulls won just 47 games and finished fifth in their own division, but voters recognized greatness when they saw it. Jordan finished second in MVP voting after already having won it the previous year. Jordan's Bulls came within two wins of the Finals that year, too.

So who had the other 32/8/8 season? Why, Luka Doncic, of course!

Doncic averaged 32.4 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 8.0 assists last season. But unlike Jordan, Doncic finished a distant eighth in MVP voting. He got a measly 10 points out of a possible 1,000 from voters, somehow deemed less valuable than Domantas Sabonis in seventh. Good luck explaining that to history.

So why wasn't Doncic "valuable" to voters last year?

It's an easy answer, really. He didn't win enough, especially at the end of the season.

Let's talk about winning.

The Myth of Doncic Not Winning Enough

The most common criticism lobbied at Doncic is his lack of winning, or maybe more accurately, his lack of capital-W Winning.

You know, like, the real winning. Winning the ones that matter. Ringz culture.

There's no doubt the Mavs did not win enough last year. They finished an ugly 38-44, outright tanking their way out of a possible play-in berth over the final weeks to keep hold of a top-10 protected pick that, it should be noted, has turned into Dereck Lively, a proposition that's already working out quite nicely.

This year's Mavs aren't winning a ton either. They did win six in a row heading into the All-Star break but still sit as the current West 8-seed and may be headed for the play-in tournament.

Is that Luka's fault?

Dallas just added P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford at the trade deadline. Of the 15 Mavericks who have played more minutes than those two this season, only four have a positive BPM — Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Dwight Powell, and Dante Exum. Only Luka, Kyrie, and Exum have a positive Offensive BPM.

Potential Sixth Man of the Year Tim Hardaway Jr. is fading quickly. He's at -2.7 BPM and sub-56% True Shooting, mostly scoring because, well, someone has to. Irving is great but unreliable. Exum and Powell are fine. Lively's been solid, for a rookie.

The Mavs are on a 47-win pace despite all that. The West 3-seed last season won 48 games.

Dallas is 11-8 without Kyrie Irving if Doncic plays, basically that same 47-win pace. The Mavs are on a 53-win pace when both play.

Dallas is good, about as good as anyone in the West. Any 47-win season in the NBA is a good one. There's just a ton of other good West teams this year, too.

Humans have short memories, so it's easy to get stuck on last year's failure and this year's seeming mediocrity, but what about some of Doncic's previous seasons?

In his sophomore season, Doncic led the Mavs to a 47-win pace in a shortened season. Dallas had the No. 1 Offensive Rating not just that season but in league history. Dallas lost 4-2 to the Clippers in the opening round of the playoffs but Doncic hit a memorable buzzer-beating 3 to steal a win and cap a playoff triple-double at the tender age of 21.

The following season, the Mavs played at a 48-win pace. They went up 2-0 on the Clippers in the first round and ultimately lost in seven games, no thanks to an absurd 46/7/14 stat line from Doncic.

The  year after that, the Mavs were even better. They won 52 games, beat the Jazz in the first round, then stunned and embarrassed the 1-seed Suns in the West semifinals. No heroics needed from Doncic in Game 7 this time — Dallas led Phoenix 57-27 at halftime.

The Mavs lost to the eventual champion Warriors in the Western Conference finals, and they made that entire run with their second best player, Kristaps Porzingis, sidelined with injury and a precocious 22-year-old Doncic averaging 32, 10, and 6 on 58% True Shooting with a 9.3 BPM, basically MVP numbers.

So, before last season, Doncic had helped the Mavs win more games each year of his career than the one before, led his team to at least a 47-win pace and the playoffs three straight times, and carried his team to the Western Conference finals, all by age 23.

Seems pretty good to me.

Amazing how quickly we forget just how much winning Luka Doncic has already done in his career.

Doncic is a winner. But what about that other nagging perception?

The Grifting and the Whining

Nikola Jokic won MVP averaging 27, 14, and 8 for a 48-win 6-seed.

Russell Westbrook was MVP with 32, 11, and 10 his triple-double season for a 47-win 6-seed.

Luka Doncic this season is at 34, 9, and 9 and on pace for 47 wins, matching those two MVPs right on down the line. Still, he remains a distant third or fourth in MVP odds at most books.

Jokic and Westbrook apparently won enough to take home an MVP trophy, so what is Doncic doing wrong?

A few of the responses above give us a clue.

One commenter called Doncic a generational talent and a generational whiner, something like Kevin Durant for Gen Z. Another said he isn't much better than Houston James Harden, like that's some sort of negative comparison and not a comp to one of the greatest offensive players in league history, full stop.

Like Harden, Doncic plays an extremely heliocentric style of ball, heavy usage with a ton of shots and plenty of teammates standing around waiting to take the open shots Luka creates for them. Doncic is also on pace to be responsible for more points produced per game than any player in NBA history, by the way.

And unlike Harden's annual playoff failures, Doncic shows up in April and May. He's scored at least 31 PPG in all three playoff runs, leading all players in two of the three with a career 32.5 PPG. That mark trails only one player in NBA history among guys with at least 25 postseason games. That's Michael Jordan, and Doncic trails by under one PPG.

But it's not just the heliocentric style and numbers that are similar to Harden, who probably wins a title in Houston if not for the existence of the Kevin Durant Warriors.

It's the grifting and the whining that evoke the Harden comp more than anything else.

Doncic lives at the line, and he makes sure of it. He's already taken over 3,000 free throws in his career just in the regular season, and he has a reputation for constant grifting for freebies and incessantly whining at the refs to get the right call.

You can close your eyes and picture the shrugged shoulders and pleading eyes, the shocked and exasperated look when a call does not go Doncic's way. It's exhausting, for fans and media alike.

I don't have an answer to all the whining and the stylistic concerns, though even those have gotten better this season. Doncic's free-throw rate is way down this year, despite the significant spike in scoring efficiency. The whining and complaining seems a touch down too.

It feels like Doncic is playing "the right way" a little more often this season. It feels like he's having more fun, and like we are too, watching him.

The question now is whether he'll get the credit he's already long deserved.

Doncic is 25. We likely have a long career of Luka ball ahead to parse through, hopefully at least a decade more of numbers, wins, awards, and playoff runs. But nothing is certain, and who knows what the next 10 years will bring?

For now, though, Doncic's 25th-birthday resume stacks up as impressively as just about anyone in history.

Just look at the names we keep comparing Luka to:

MJ. Durant. Kobe. Shaq. Kareem. Wilt.

Really the only name that clears Doncic at this point of his career was LeBron.

We're talking about the greatest players in league history. That's the only company Luka Doncic is keeping through this point of his career.

Doncic has the numbers. He has the wins too, outside of a tough run last season. The whining and grifting has been annoying, but who among us didn't do some annoying stuff in our early 20s?

With Jokic, Giannis, and Embiid starting to age out of their primes and LeBron, Curry, and Durant long since past, it's time for the next face of the NBA to step forward.

Why not Luka?

Happy birthday, Luka Doncic. Can't wait to see what you do in your newest trip around the sun.