Dallas Mavericks All-Star guard Luka Doncic has established himself as a traveling triple-double in just his third season in the league. In his second year, he broke Magic Johnson’s record of the most triple doubles by a player before age 21, accumulating 21 of them. Doncic has also surpassed legends like Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Elgin Baylor on the triple duo’s all-time roster. During Sunday afternoon’s game against the Chicago Bulls, Doncic overtook another: Michael Jordan.
With a double pass behind his back to Willie Cauley-Stein in the middle of the third quarter against the Bulls, Doncic overtook Jordan and climbed to 15th place on the double triple list of all time after registering 29th of his career, which now links him to Grant Hill.
While the record itself is an achievement, especially since it went against Jordan’s former team while wearing Jordan’s shoes as an Jordan brand athlete, the pass that led him to that brand was absolutely insane.
Going through the back to keep the ball away from a suffocating defense of the Bulls in the painting was a nice touch, but going with the back pass immediately after that is just ridiculous and something very striking for Doncic, who has more than his nickname. from “Luka Magic”.
Doncic was considered a likely MVP candidate entering the new season and, although he struggled at the start of the Mavs schedule, has an average of 30.6 points, 11.6 rebounds and 11.2 assists in the last five games to lead a team from Dallas that was recently hit by a covid outbreak19. He’s not just doing this in the attack; his defense has had a significant improvement over the previous two seasons, as he played a game in which he came out with five steals, and another with four blocks.
The third year guard is starting to get back on track and is playing at the MVP level now. Once Dallas has his full team back and Kristaps Porzingis gets rid of the rust, that Mavericks team can be pretty scary when the postseason arrives.