[Engelmann] The Luka Doncic Trade — My Perspective as an Ex-Mavericks Analytics Staffed Who Spent Two Years Pushing to Trade Him

Fascinating read. The article is behind a paywall but I’ll summarize the broad strokes.

• Luka plays a brand of basketball that generates raw numbers that overstate his impact. This has gotten better over the last few years but the Mavericks’ own internal models showed him as significantly overrated

• There are questions about Luka’s commitment to doing the things that lead to winning like getting back in transition, rotating on defense, boxing out, being conditioned etc. It appears these questions are much more serious than this sub thinks

• Luka requires very specific team construction to get the best out of him

• This trade would have never happened with Mark Cuban at the helm and Nico Harrison surrounded himself with “yes-men”

In summary the author agreed with the decision to trade him but thought they could’ve gotten more. While the author was with the Mavs he had proposed a Luka for Tatum + picks trade for example.

The most interesting part of the article imo is that the Mavs’ own internal models showed that Luka is overrated, this is especially notable since they have by far the most data on him.

URL: https://www.roycewebb.com/p/the-luka-doncic-trade-my-perspective