Does Luka make his teammates better or not?

 It is common knowledge that players seem to attract more hate as they become more successful. It happens with many NBA greats. LeBron James receives hate for “taking his talents to South Beach”. Steph Curry is consistently penalized by NBA writers and fans for never earning Finals MVP honors, and James Harden gets discredited for his unorthodox style of 1-on-1 play. As Luka Doncic’s young career starts to look increasingly more impressive, it seems that he is responsible for turning more basketball fans into “haters”. 

    A usual misconception about Luka is that he “doesn’t make his teammates better” or collects “empty stats”. I have seen several NBA “analysts”, fans, scouts, and others make an assessment that in summary, Luka is not a winning basketball player due to these observations. 

     This lazy analysis is a far-reaching myth. For starters, we know that there are individuals out there that like to examine a player’s strengths and weaknesses based on Bleacher Report highlights and their points per game statistic. Anyone that watches Luka play basketball on a consistent basis discerns that he makes his team amply better with him on the court. Another myth is that Luka significantly hurts his team defensively, which is not the case either. We all know that he is not one of the league’s chief defenders, but his IQ, competitiveness, and strength together allow him to perform better on that end than most will give him credit for. 

   We can first assess exactly how Luka affects a starter on the team this year. It is worth noting that the 21-year old is the best player on the highest-rated offense of all time. 

   I tweeted this a while ago but wanted to take it into further detail. One player that has benefited tremendously from Luka’s style of play is Tim Hardaway Jr. 

While Luka is on the floor with him, he only averages 1.4 dribbles per possession. Anyone who watches Hardaway play can understand that he’s not the best ball-handler on the team and is known for his shooting qualities. WITHOUT Luka on the floor with him, Hardaway by default becomes more responsible for trying to initiate the offense and his dribbles per possession increases to 3.1. 

THJ shoots a blistering 41.8% from three when he takes anywhere from 0-2 dribbles. This drops to 37.5% when he has to dribble 3+ times. This is great evidence to suggest that THJ is much more comfortable in catch-and-shoot situations, more so than having to create his own shot. Luka, if you do not already know, might be one of the best three playmakers in the league at this point in his career. 

An unappreciated part of being a great passer is being able to put the ball unerringly where shooters can catch-and-shoot with ease without having to adjust or “chase” a pass. Luka is superb at this and the numbers strongly support this case.  On catch-and-shoot threes, THJ knocks down shots at a 45.2% clip when Luka passes Tim the ball. Any other player’s pass nets him just a 40.6% chance. 

Furthermore, THJ possesses the ball for 2.6 seconds with Luka in the game, per possession and 5.8 seconds without Luka. This seems insignificant until you note that THJ knocks down 41.2% of his threes when he possesses the ball for 0-4 seconds but a lowly 34.8% when he has the ball for 5+ seconds on each possession. 

Data also shows that the longer Tim holds the ball in the shot clock, the less effective his shot is. On the graph below, it shows this information. Something worth noting is that his average shot time while Luka is on the floor is at 16.8 seconds left on the shot clock. His average release without Luka is at 12.2 seconds. 

    The point is, THJ holds the ball for a greater amount of time while Luka is not on the floor causing him to throw up a bad, contested shot. This trend is actually true for every player on the Mavericks this year with the exception of Courtney Lee. Lee often plays in place of Luka in 4^th quarter blowouts. 

     Out of the 23 players Luka has shared the court with in his first two seasons, 18 of them have had at least a marginal increase in efficiency and shooting.

       Porzingis is the only significant starter that has seen a decrease in efficiency while sharing the floor with Luka. Much of this can be blamed to the slow start Porzingis had to start the year while Luka was healthy. Porzingis really started to find his form and dominate during the last few weeks before the season’s suspension which is unfortunate for Luka considering the Mav’s best player was battling injuries while KP caught fire. 

       This data makes it glaringly obvious that Luka does a superb job of making his teammates better. His high usage percentage puts the entire burden of initiating the offense on his shoulders. Players such as Tim Hardaway Jr., Dennis Smith, Harrison Barnes, Delon Wright, and Wesley Matthews have benefited from this the most. The players mentioned each saw their Turnover% drop by having Luka handle the ball. 

     It only makes sense that they would turn the ball over less when they have less responsibility to make plays and setup the offense. Most of the aforementioned players were unable to create their own shot and having Luka create for them without the burden of Wesley Matthews throwing up a 35-footer with three seconds on the shot clock helps the entire team. It also prevented Harrison Barnes from backing down from the three-point line to the block for 22.5 seconds and launching a turnaround jumper. Most recent, Mavs fans do not have to worry about Tim Hardaway hoisting a 7-dribble sidestep three. Instead, Luka always finds the open man while taking the burden of double teams and being hounded by the opposing team’s best defender. 

     All that being said, these are mostly things any casual NBA fan would never know without watching games. If you have hate in your heart for a 21-year old averaging a triple-double in his second NBA season, I ask that you look at yourself in the mirror and re-evaluate yourself before you realize that Luka Doncic is *probably* a future multiple-time MVP in this league.