Luka Doncic should be Suns’ #1 option in the Draft
By Dallin Funk
The best teams in the NBA revolve around high-level guard play. The Phoenix Suns would be smart to follow suit and pair Luka Doncic with Devin Booker.
While the 2018 NBA draft is stacked with potential future all-stars like Marvin Bagley III, Trae Young, Michael Porter Jr, and Mo Bamba, there are two players that stand out above the rest: University of Arizona big man Deandre Ayton and Euro League star-guard Luka Doncic. However, I believe that Luka Doncic should be the clear choice for the Phoenix Suns come draft day.
Phoenix Suns
The ingredients for building a championship contender in today’s NBA are drastically changing. So long are the days of constructing an elite team from the inside out. Now championship caliber teams are made from the outside in. The top two teams in both the East and the West are built around dominant guard play. Guards James Harden and Chris Paul lead the Houston Rockets; Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan are the centerpieces for the top-seeded Toronto Raptors; Kyrie Irving is the best player in Boston, and the splash brothers, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, are all-star guards for one of the greatest teams of all-time.
The best big man on any of those four team is arguably Al Horford, but I’m not sure that even he would be considered among the more dominant big men in the NBA.
Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, Andre Drummond, Karl Anthony-Towns, and Nikola Jokic are widely considered the best big men in the NBA today. Yet, only the Timberwolves, with center Karl Anthony-Towns, currently sits higher than a 6th seed in the standings and many would say that the best player on that team before he got hurt was guard Jimmy Butler.
There is still a place in the NBA for dominant big men, but that is no longer an essential part of putting together a championship roster. The current landscape of the NBA proves that. Elite teams revolve around elite level guard play and there is no guard as talented as Luka Doncic in the 2018 NBA draft.
The 6-6 Slovenian guard is averaging 15.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 4.5 assists as the best player for Real Madrid, the best team in Liga ACB in Europe. His season has been so exceptional, Euroleague.net cited Luka as a front-runner for league MVP,
"“He leads the league in performance index rating with 24.3 per game and is tied for the league lead with three MVP of the round nods. Doncic’s eight games with a performance index ranking of at least 30 are also most in the league. The 18-year-old ranks among the top 10 in the league in scoring, assists, and steals.”"
Doncic is not a dominant athlete, but his smarts and feel for the game more than make up for any physical shortcomings. Luka can find a way to score from almost anywhere on the court. Dave DuFour of RealGM tweeted out a chart that shows off just how multi-dimensional Doncic is as a scorer:
Even at 19-years-old, Doncic proves that he can thrive in a variety of situations. From being the primary pick and roll ball handler to scoring in transition, Doncic can do it all offensively.
Next: Valley of the Suns 2018 Mock Draft 1.0
The NBA has changed. By drafting Luka Doncic, the Phoenix Suns would be following the same formula of the top teams in the NBA. The duo of Doncic and Devin Booker would potentially give the Suns two all-star level guards for the next decade. A combination that has obviously worked for the Rockets, Warriors, and Raptors.
Heck, the Warriors have dominated the NBA for years despite regularly rolling out bigs like Zaza Pachulia and JaVale McGee.