Luka Doncic ('24 NBA Scoring Leader) & Kyrie Irving - 23-24 NBA Thread

[Colbinii]

1st win of the season vs Victor

They beat a team project < 30 wins.

NBA Championship bound!

[Mavrelous]

That year 6 age 24 season is When Lebron & Giannis became legit Mvp caliber players from an impact perspective. Hopefully Luka follows suit even if he doesn't win the award. He either needs to get more efficient on offense. (3's, ftrs,) cut the turnovers even more, or become a much better defender. Preferably all of them.

Luka already had MVP calibre seasons, in 2020 and 2022, in 2020 Brunson missed the PO, Powell tore his Achillis, KP went down after 3 games so he went to battle with Trey Burke and Boban against the Clippers, in 22 he went to the WCF on a 7 man rotation due to THJ going down.

[itsxtray]

That year 6 age 24 season is When Lebron & Giannis became legit Mvp caliber players from an impact perspective. Hopefully Luka follows suit even if he doesn't win the award. He either needs to get more efficient on offense. (3's, ftrs,) cut the turnovers even more, or become a much better defender. Preferably all of them.

Luka already had MVP calibre seasons, in 2020 and 2022, in 2020 Brunson missed the PO, Powell tore his Achillis, KP went down after 3 games so he went to battle with Trey Burke and Boban against the Clippers, in 22 he went to the WCF on a 7 man rotation due to THJ going down.

Not from an impact perspective.

[McBubbles]

Conf finals if all breaks their way-

Why not- a top 75 player in Kyrie and a young gun in Luka.

If this team was Lebron and Kyrie when Lebron was Luka’s age or even KD- we would expect a lot. If Luka that Guy- why not expect this from him and Kyrie.?

Those Cavs teams seem much better constructed than this Maps team TBH. Kevin Love, even though he seemed obsolete in some ways, was a third option that could get 17/10/3 on +1 or + 2 TS% while spacing the floor. Clearly he'd be better than literally everyone else on the current Mavs by a wide margin. The Mavs don't have a legit third option scorer, and I'm not even sure they have a good fourth option scorer unless Josh Green or Hardy take a big leap. Then even with Grant Williams, Idk about their defense. LeBron was an elite defender/gap filler in a way that Luka can never be, and they still had decent wing defenders and size outside of him (that's why in 2015 they could convert to being a great defensive team).

The Mavs need to make more moves, as is I see them winning no more than 44 games.

No man- those cavs had Lebron - Lebron made the pieces work. I expect Luka to do the same. Even Kyrie and KD minus Harden or Ben expected to make noise.

This will be year 6.

It’s about time for Luka (and honestly more than Luka- the Mavs)to go from “potential” to “threat”

This is that year- or Luka needs to get out.

I say that because at some point the team is making progress or it isn’t. I see them making big noise this year -

But if they don’t - why waste much more time with the Mavs when you see teams like the Bucks, Suns and Boston improving upon better teams than the Mavs.

The lakers got better this offseason - did the Mavs or are they running it back with better continuity?

LeBron, Kyrie, Love, KD, Harden, Luka. Why aren't you mentioning supporting casts? Why aren't you mentioning role players? Kyrie and KD without Harden or Ben had a good supporting cast, the Mavs don't. A 1s Teamer, a 3rd Teamer, and a mediocre supporting cast shouldn't be expected to do much, and the Mavs supporting cast is at best mediocre.

Enough offence with poor rebounding and poor defence isn't going to take you very far regardless of who the two best players are. People are just going to ignore all that and then say they underachieved due to not having enough dog in them or some nonsense.

That's also ignoring how disgustingly injury prone Kyrie is. In the past 4 years, Kyrie Irving missed a whopping 145 regular season games, which is 48% of the regular season games in this span. He also missed an entire playoff run and then 3 games accross this time.

In the past 6 years he's played more than 60 games ONCE, and that was back in 2019 when he was 26 years old, now he's 31.

[Mavrelous]

KD and 29 y/o Kyrie got swept in the 1st round, prime Kyrie with 2nd year Brown, Rookie Tatum, Smart, Horford and Hayward, got gentelman swept in the 2nd round, and but Luka has no excuse if he doesn't win with 32 y/o Kyrie...
I think Mavs have a good guard and wing to pair with Luka and Kyrie in Green and Williams, they won't bring the great help defense of DFS or or the saavy defense of Bullock, but Williams is a much more reliable shooter, and Green has way more tools and speed than Bullock, but he needs to learn to navigate screens and be more confident, it'll come down to the center position, if Lively continues to develop and he's a reliable center by the PO and Kyrie stays healthy, Mavs have a good chance.
That of course of Kidd doesn't go out of his way to help the opponent win, like gifting the Spurs with non-shooting, non-dribbling wing so that 8 feet wingspan guy can help off of and close the lane for Luka/Kyrie...

[LukaTheGOAT]

Honestly, Luka doing well in the RS is cool but the real intrigue with him is that he might be a GOAT level PS riser. He's able to do things that top 10-15 offensive players ever before him have struggled to do in a PS series, dating back to 2020. That's always been the case, and when Luka is most fun to watch.

[CobraCommander]

Those Cavs teams seem much better constructed than this Maps team TBH. Kevin Love, even though he seemed obsolete in some ways, was a third option that could get 17/10/3 on +1 or + 2 TS% while spacing the floor. Clearly he'd be better than literally everyone else on the current Mavs by a wide margin. The Mavs don't have a legit third option scorer, and I'm not even sure they have a good fourth option scorer unless Josh Green or Hardy take a big leap. Then even with Grant Williams, Idk about their defense. LeBron was an elite defender/gap filler in a way that Luka can never be, and they still had decent wing defenders and size outside of him (that's why in 2015 they could convert to being a great defensive team).

The Mavs need to make more moves, as is I see them winning no more than 44 games.

No man- those cavs had Lebron - Lebron made the pieces work. I expect Luka to do the same. Even Kyrie and KD minus Harden or Ben expected to make noise.

This will be year 6.

It’s about time for Luka (and honestly more than Luka- the Mavs)to go from “potential” to “threat”

This is that year- or Luka needs to get out.

I say that because at some point the team is making progress or it isn’t. I see them making big noise this year -

But if they don’t - why waste much more time with the Mavs when you see teams like the Bucks, Suns and Boston improving upon better teams than the Mavs.

The lakers got better this offseason - did the Mavs or are they running it back with better continuity?

LeBron, Kyrie, Love, KD, Harden, Luka. Why aren't you mentioning supporting casts? Why aren't you mentioning role players? Kyrie and KD without Harden or Ben had a good supporting cast, the Mavs don't. A 1s Teamer, a 3rd Teamer, and a mediocre supporting cast shouldn't be expected to do much, and the Mavs supporting cast is at best mediocre.

Enough offence with poor rebounding and poor defence isn't going to take you very far regardless of who the two best players are. People are just going to ignore all that and then say they underachieved due to not having enough dog in them or some nonsense.

That's also ignoring how disgustingly injury prone Kyrie is. In the past 4 years, Kyrie Irving missed a whopping 145 regular season games, which is 48% of the regular season games in this span. He also missed an entire playoff run and then 3 games accross this time.

In the past 6 years he's played more than 60 games ONCE, and that was back in 2019 when he was 26 years old, now he's 31.

Man YOUNG pre-Miami Lebron has much much worse teams than Luka - KP, Dinwiddie, Brunson, etc are all better than people young Lebron had- And LBJ went to finals

Luka is just not as good as young Lebron - period- it’s been 5 years and honestly people know this already and it’s not a slight on Luka - Lebron is the 1st or second best player ever.

Luka is great and let’s see what he can do this year. But he hasn’t been much of a leader for the first 5 years of his career. It’s more than playing basketball at the elite levels - it’s leadership and he isn’t the leader Lebron is either. Maybe this year he will lead on and off the court better and they get to the conf finals like I predict.

Again Luka one of the top 6 guys in league to me- he just has to do it on the court- and I’m not talking about getting stats - at this point the only thing that matters is winning for a guy of his caliber- Same with all the top guys- we don’t care if avg a triple double - Westbrook already did that - we don’t care if you lead the league in points - harden has done that - and we don’t care if you lead the league in assist- harden has done that too- Luka is good enough to be Jugded by his rings -

[tsherkin]

And LBJ went to finals

That Cleveland team was the 4th-best D in the league and the 18th-ranked offense. They faced a 41-win Wizards team, the 41-win Nets, and then beat the 53-win Pistons before getting swept by the Spurs. I'm not sure that's the achievement you believe it to be, especially from the POV of Lebron. The 40-win Magic were the 8th seed. During the process, Lebron was a 51.6% TS scorer in the PS, which was -1.4% relative to playoff league average. Food for thought. His passing was big, his on-ball action drove what little offense they had, but that team won on the basis of their defense, which you appear to be discarding... and they didn't face a great deal of competition, apart from the ECFs.

[CobraCommander]

And LBJ went to finals

That Cleveland team was the 4th-best D in the league and the 18th-ranked offense. They faced a 41-win Wizards team, the 41-win Nets, and then beat the 53-win Pistons before getting swept by the Spurs. I'm not sure that's the achievement you believe it to be, especially from the POV of Lebron. The 40-win Magic were the 8th seed. During the process, Lebron was a 51.6% TS scorer in the PS, which was -1.4% relative to playoff league average. Food for thought. His passing was big, his on-ball action drove what little offense they had, but that team won on the basis of their defense, which you appear to be discarding... and they didn't face a great deal of competition, apart from the ECFs.

Did they go to the finals ?

You know Luka ain’t as good as young Lebron - stop it- Luka IS good enough right now to be an MVP and take this team to the finals. That’s not an insult anywhere else except on RealGM lol

You making it sound like an insult to say Luka ain’t on par with the second best player all time… come on man- he good but not that good

[tsherkin]

Did they go to the finals ?

You know Luka ain’t as good as young Lebron - stop it- Luka IS good enough right now to be an MVP and take this team to the finals. That’s not an insult anywhere else except on RealGM lol

You making it sound like an insult to say Luka ain’t on par with the second best player all time… come on man- he good but not that good

I think it's clear that Luka is presently a similar offensive player to 07 Lebron, and a less effective defender. I think that when you talk about a team-based accomplishment like postseason success, you better actually understand what happened and provide relevant context. Comparing guys without context is nonsense.

[CobraCommander]

Did they go to the finals ?

You know Luka ain’t as good as young Lebron - stop it- Luka IS good enough right now to be an MVP and take this team to the finals. That’s not an insult anywhere else except on RealGM lol

You making it sound like an insult to say Luka ain’t on par with the second best player all time… come on man- he good but not that good

I think it's clear that Luka is presently a similar offensive player to 07 Lebron, and a less effective defender. I think that when you talk about a team-based accomplishment like postseason success, you better actually understand what happened and provide relevant context. Comparing guys without context is nonsense.

Is Luka as good as young Lebron? No....love your man but don’t be ridiculous

[Texas Chuck]

Nights like this make me wonder why some of you are so determined to hate a guy that is pure basketball joy.

Who cares if he's not LEbron freaking James. You know who else isn't? Literally every other person who ever walked the planet. What a silly standard.

[dygaction]

Nights like this make me wonder why some of you are so determined to hate a guy that is pure basketball joy.

Who cares if he's not LEbron freaking James. You know who else isn't? Literally every other person who ever walked the planet. What a silly standard.

It is hard to call those haters when they dont' miss any opportunities to throw daggers but have much higher standards/expectations from Luka than almost any Mavs fans.

[tsherkin]

Is Luka as good as young Lebron? No....love your man but don’t be ridiculous

Lebron over his first years wasn't as dominant offensively as he would come to be. Even relative to the league of his time, he wasn't as good as Luka on offense. He was growing into a superior defender and he was showing the signs of what he'd become but it wasn't quite the same. 2007 in particular was actually a down year for him.

Lebron is amazing, and certainly as we start to talk about 2009 James and later this story begins to look a little different. But it appears as if you're determined not to appreciate Luka for some reason. Doncic is an incredible offensive player and Lebron didn't hit the league at his maximum level of impact. And Lebron couldn't consistently hit perimeter shots in his earliest years; he wasn't actually particularly good past about 10 feet until basically his first year in Miami. It didn't matter so much because he had the quickness and power to bully his way to the rim a lot, particularly in a faster-paced game, but it did change the nature of his game and how he could be defended.

[McBubbles]

No man- those cavs had Lebron - Lebron made the pieces work. I expect Luka to do the same. Even Kyrie and KD minus Harden or Ben expected to make noise.

This will be year 6.

It’s about time for Luka (and honestly more than Luka- the Mavs)to go from “potential” to “threat”

This is that year- or Luka needs to get out.

I say that because at some point the team is making progress or it isn’t. I see them making big noise this year -

But if they don’t - why waste much more time with the Mavs when you see teams like the Bucks, Suns and Boston improving upon better teams than the Mavs.

The lakers got better this offseason - did the Mavs or are they running it back with better continuity?

LeBron, Kyrie, Love, KD, Harden, Luka. Why aren't you mentioning supporting casts? Why aren't you mentioning role players? Kyrie and KD without Harden or Ben had a good supporting cast, the Mavs don't. A 1s Teamer, a 3rd Teamer, and a mediocre supporting cast shouldn't be expected to do much, and the Mavs supporting cast is at best mediocre.

Enough offence with poor rebounding and poor defence isn't going to take you very far regardless of who the two best players are. People are just going to ignore all that and then say they underachieved due to not having enough dog in them or some nonsense.

That's also ignoring how disgustingly injury prone Kyrie is. In the past 4 years, Kyrie Irving missed a whopping 145 regular season games, which is 48% of the regular season games in this span. He also missed an entire playoff run and then 3 games accross this time.

In the past 6 years he's played more than 60 games ONCE, and that was back in 2019 when he was 26 years old, now he's 31.

Man YOUNG pre-Miami Lebron has much much worse teams than Luka - KP, Dinwiddie, Brunson, etc are all better than people young Lebron had- And LBJ went to finals

Luka is just not as good as young Lebron - period- it’s been 5 years and honestly people know this already and it’s not a slight on Luka - Lebron is the 1st or second best player ever.

Luka is great and let’s see what he can do this year. But he hasn’t been much of a leader for the first 5 years of his career. It’s more than playing basketball at the elite levels - it’s leadership and he isn’t the leader Lebron is either. Maybe this year he will lead on and off the court better and they get to the conf finals like I predict.

Again Luka one of the top 6 guys in league to me- he just has to do it on the court- and I’m not talking about getting stats - at this point the only thing that matters is winning for a guy of his caliber- Same with all the top guys- we don’t care if avg a triple double - Westbrook already did that - we don’t care if you lead the league in points - harden has done that - and we don’t care if you lead the league in assist- harden has done that too- Luka is good enough to be Jugded by his rings -

Stop bringing up Lebron what the **** ? Lebron has nothing to do with this, jeez. You said his name 6 times, why'd you keep on bringing him up?

Superstars don't win championships without championship level supporting casts, and Luka currently doesn't have one. End of story. Consequently, I'm not going to be disappointed if the person I didn't expect to win a championship didn't win a championship.

[TroubleS0me]

MVP mode
49 pts already

[Pelly24]

No man- those cavs had Lebron - Lebron made the pieces work. I expect Luka to do the same. Even Kyrie and KD minus Harden or Ben expected to make noise.

This will be year 6.

It’s about time for Luka (and honestly more than Luka- the Mavs)to go from “potential” to “threat”

This is that year- or Luka needs to get out.

I say that because at some point the team is making progress or it isn’t. I see them making big noise this year -

But if they don’t - why waste much more time with the Mavs when you see teams like the Bucks, Suns and Boston improving upon better teams than the Mavs.

The lakers got better this offseason - did the Mavs or are they running it back with better continuity?

LeBron, Kyrie, Love, KD, Harden, Luka. Why aren't you mentioning supporting casts? Why aren't you mentioning role players? Kyrie and KD without Harden or Ben had a good supporting cast, the Mavs don't. A 1s Teamer, a 3rd Teamer, and a mediocre supporting cast shouldn't be expected to do much, and the Mavs supporting cast is at best mediocre.

Enough offence with poor rebounding and poor defence isn't going to take you very far regardless of who the two best players are. People are just going to ignore all that and then say they underachieved due to not having enough dog in them or some nonsense.

That's also ignoring how disgustingly injury prone Kyrie is. In the past 4 years, Kyrie Irving missed a whopping 145 regular season games, which is 48% of the regular season games in this span. He also missed an entire playoff run and then 3 games accross this time.

In the past 6 years he's played more than 60 games ONCE, and that was back in 2019 when he was 26 years old, now he's 31.

Man YOUNG pre-Miami Lebron has much much worse teams than Luka - KP, Dinwiddie, Brunson, etc are all better than people young Lebron had- And LBJ went to finals

Luka is just not as good as young Lebron - period- it’s been 5 years and honestly people know this already and it’s not a slight on Luka - Lebron is the 1st or second best player ever.

Luka is great and let’s see what he can do this year. But he hasn’t been much of a leader for the first 5 years of his career. It’s more than playing basketball at the elite levels - it’s leadership and he isn’t the leader Lebron is either. Maybe this year he will lead on and off the court better and they get to the conf finals like I predict.

Again Luka one of the top 6 guys in league to me- he just has to do it on the court- and I’m not talking about getting stats - at this point the only thing that matters is winning for a guy of his caliber- Same with all the top guys- we don’t care if avg a triple double - Westbrook already did that - we don’t care if you lead the league in points - harden has done that - and we don’t care if you lead the league in assist- harden has done that too- Luka is good enough to be Jugded by his rings -

Only players I'm taking before Luka are Jokic and Giannis — and Giannis really doesn't raise his game in the playoffs the way Luka has. Luka has a shot at MVP if the mass get to 50+ wins. Lively being a potentially decent big does wonders for their squad already. Grant Williams is a good piece, they have some athletes on the wing. Once Kyrie gets conditioning/rust off/right, he'll be all-nba level, giving Luka his best teammate. They might surprise this year. Luka is just one of those inexplicably good players who can seemingly be as good as he needs to be, like a LeBron and MJ and Jokic.

[Heej]

Rewatching the latest Mavs game. Hope to be more active in here as far as breaking down what I see from Xs and Os cuz Luka's my 2nd guy. But gotta say, wtf did not expect Dante Exum to still be hanging around. Was he with y'all last year?

Btw I wanted Lively to fall to the Lakers but knew he wouldn't. Y'all got a good one. That's your franchise center, imo barring injury he easily projects to being a closing caliber Finals level center when he reaches his prime; let alone being a legitimate game changer because I think he has a 50/50 shot at turning into a capable outside shooter at the center position.

Kid also has good deceleration and fluidity for his size. Hell, I'd venture to say it's actually great right now but the unicorn generation is coming so he may actually be the baseline of what the new modern center is supposed to be in terms of agility and nimbleness. Think he sticks tho, and he's very prototypical as far as what you want for the new age elite role player caliber center. However he needs to bulk up in these early years to not cap his ceiling.

[CobraCommander]

LeBron, Kyrie, Love, KD, Harden, Luka. Why aren't you mentioning supporting casts? Why aren't you mentioning role players? Kyrie and KD without Harden or Ben had a good supporting cast, the Mavs don't. A 1s Teamer, a 3rd Teamer, and a mediocre supporting cast shouldn't be expected to do much, and the Mavs supporting cast is at best mediocre.

Enough offence with poor rebounding and poor defence isn't going to take you very far regardless of who the two best players are. People are just going to ignore all that and then say they underachieved due to not having enough dog in them or some nonsense.

That's also ignoring how disgustingly injury prone Kyrie is. In the past 4 years, Kyrie Irving missed a whopping 145 regular season games, which is 48% of the regular season games in this span. He also missed an entire playoff run and then 3 games accross this time.

In the past 6 years he's played more than 60 games ONCE, and that was back in 2019 when he was 26 years old, now he's 31.

Man YOUNG pre-Miami Lebron has much much worse teams than Luka - KP, Dinwiddie, Brunson, etc are all better than people young Lebron had- And LBJ went to finals

Luka is just not as good as young Lebron - period- it’s been 5 years and honestly people know this already and it’s not a slight on Luka - Lebron is the 1st or second best player ever.

Luka is great and let’s see what he can do this year. But he hasn’t been much of a leader for the first 5 years of his career. It’s more than playing basketball at the elite levels - it’s leadership and he isn’t the leader Lebron is either. Maybe this year he will lead on and off the court better and they get to the conf finals like I predict.

Again Luka one of the top 6 guys in league to me- he just has to do it on the court- and I’m not talking about getting stats - at this point the only thing that matters is winning for a guy of his caliber- Same with all the top guys- we don’t care if avg a triple double - Westbrook already did that - we don’t care if you lead the league in points - harden has done that - and we don’t care if you lead the league in assist- harden has done that too- Luka is good enough to be Jugded by his rings -

Only players I'm taking before Luka are Jokic and Giannis — and Giannis really doesn't raise his game in the playoffs the way Luka has. Luka has a shot at MVP if the mass get to 50+ wins. Lively being a potentially decent big does wonders for their squad already. Grant Williams is a good piece, they have some athletes on the wing. Once Kyrie gets conditioning/rust off/right, he'll be all-nba level, giving Luka his best teammate. They might surprise this year. Luka is just one of those inexplicably good players who can seemingly be as good as he needs to be, like a LeBron and MJ and Jokic.

You mean like that time Giannis had one the best games ever in the finals and won the ring and FMVP?

Dude stop being silly and biased -

If you don’t see Giannis better you are silly - one might do and one has already done it.

[CobraCommander]

LeBron, Kyrie, Love, KD, Harden, Luka. Why aren't you mentioning supporting casts? Why aren't you mentioning role players? Kyrie and KD without Harden or Ben had a good supporting cast, the Mavs don't. A 1s Teamer, a 3rd Teamer, and a mediocre supporting cast shouldn't be expected to do much, and the Mavs supporting cast is at best mediocre.

Enough offence with poor rebounding and poor defence isn't going to take you very far regardless of who the two best players are. People are just going to ignore all that and then say they underachieved due to not having enough dog in them or some nonsense.

That's also ignoring how disgustingly injury prone Kyrie is. In the past 4 years, Kyrie Irving missed a whopping 145 regular season games, which is 48% of the regular season games in this span. He also missed an entire playoff run and then 3 games accross this time.

In the past 6 years he's played more than 60 games ONCE, and that was back in 2019 when he was 26 years old, now he's 31.

Man YOUNG pre-Miami Lebron has much much worse teams than Luka - KP, Dinwiddie, Brunson, etc are all better than people young Lebron had- And LBJ went to finals

Luka is just not as good as young Lebron - period- it’s been 5 years and honestly people know this already and it’s not a slight on Luka - Lebron is the 1st or second best player ever.

Luka is great and let’s see what he can do this year. But he hasn’t been much of a leader for the first 5 years of his career. It’s more than playing basketball at the elite levels - it’s leadership and he isn’t the leader Lebron is either. Maybe this year he will lead on and off the court better and they get to the conf finals like I predict.

Again Luka one of the top 6 guys in league to me- he just has to do it on the court- and I’m not talking about getting stats - at this point the only thing that matters is winning for a guy of his caliber- Same with all the top guys- we don’t care if avg a triple double - Westbrook already did that - we don’t care if you lead the league in points - harden has done that - and we don’t care if you lead the league in assist- harden has done that too- Luka is good enough to be Jugded by his rings -

Stop bringing up Lebron what the **** ? Lebron has nothing to do with this, jeez. You said his name 6 times, why'd you keep on bringing him up?

Superstars don't win championships without championship level supporting casts, and Luka currently doesn't have one. End of story. Consequently, I'm not going to be disappointed if the person I didn't expect to win a championship didn't win a championship.

lol. No one does - that’s true-

I still think Luka goes to conf finals this year and is still in the same grouping with everyone else after Giannis Embiid and Of course jokic-

The nba is stacked