Dallas Basketball

'I'm Saying Fact!': Where Does Jeff Van Gundy Project Mavs' Luka Doncic as All-Time Great?

ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy joined former Dallas Mavericks player and current broadcaster Derek Harper to discuss where Luka Doncic will rank among the NBA's best once his career is over.
Dalton Trigg|
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Dallas Mavericks

It's no secret that Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic is on an all-time pace to start his NBA career. After four seasons, Doncic holds averages of 26.4 points, 8.5 rebounds and 8.0 assists though 264 regular-season games.

In 28 career playoff games, Doncic has averaged 32.5 points – second only to the great Michael Jordan, who is the league's top postseason scorer at 33.5 points per game – 9.3 rebounds and 7.9 assists while shooting 47.3 percent from the field, including 36.6 percent from 3-point range.

If Doncic keeps going like this, the question won't be whether or not he'll be one of the best to ever play in the league, but rather how high on that impressive list he should be. ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy recently joined former Mavericks player and current broadcaster Derek Harper on his “Harp’s Court” podcast to discuss this matter. During the “Fact or Fiction” segment, Harper asked Van Gundy if he thinks Doncic will end up being a top-5 player of all time.

“If you would expand that to top-12? I’m saying fact,” said Van Gundy.

“Top-5 … Wilt (Chamberlain), (Kareem) Abdul-Jabbar, (Michael) Jordan, LeBron (James). You know everyone’s going to have their own guys. … But I’m going to tell you this right now — if you gave me one person to start a team with in the NBA right now, I would pick (Doncic) first.”

Doncic obviously still has a long way to go before he’s truly considered as being as great as the guys Van Gundy mentioned. However, at just 23 years old, Doncic has plenty of time to get there … as well as one heck of a head start to lean on.

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Dalton Trigg
DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.

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