Over the last four seasons, the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic has established himself as one of the NBA’s truly elite players and one of the more unique superstars anyone has ever seen.
He arrived during Dirk Nowitzki’s final season, and he helped keep the Mavs relevant while preventing them from having to go through a long and painful rebuilding process.
While on 97.1 The Freak’s “The Downbeat,” Jason Kidd, their head coach, said Doncic is not only a better player than Nowitzki was, but he even said Doncic is “in the atmosphere of MJ (Michael Jordan), the best to ever do it, LeBron [James], Kobe [Bryant],” per Tim MacMahon.
Jason Kidd lavished Luka Doncic with some extremely high praise today during an appearance on @971TheFreak’s The Downbeat:
“He’s better than Dirk. He’s in the atmosphere of MJ, the best to ever do it, LeBron, Kobe.”
ESPN story: https://t.co/XvgXjBmdNj
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) January 30, 2024
Nowitzki played 21 seasons in the NBA, all of them coming with Dallas, and he finished his Hall of Fame career with averages of 20.7 points and 7.5 rebounds a game while establishing himself as one of the game’s best outside-shooting big men ever.
But he was never known as a passer or facilitator — he put up a mere 2.4 assists per contest throughout his career.
Doncic, on the other hand, has a career average of 8.1 assists a game so far in his career, and so far this season, he’s at a career-high 9.6 dimes a game.
He also has a higher career rebounding average than Nowitzki finished with, and he has improved his outside shooting to the tune of a 37.5 percent mark from 3-point range this year.
Thanks to Doncic and fellow star Kyrie Irving, the Mavs are in seventh place in the Western Conference with a 26-21 record, and while they aren’t championship contenders, it looks like they’re bouncing back from last season’s embarrassment of missing the play-in tournament.
For Doncic to truly get onto the same level as Jordan, James, and Bryant, he will need to lead Dallas to a world title sooner or later, and he’ll probably need to start a collection of rings instead of winning just one.
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