Going back to preseason, I had Luka Doncic number one overall on my big board. However, I was cautious of him as a prospect relative to others on Draft Twitter. As is often the case, my evaluation has turned out to be both right and wrong. When he was shooting lights out in Euroleague, it seemed blasphemous to even consider anyone else close to Doncic. Yet, I remained skeptical of his ability to keep up his ridiculous percentages over an extended period. That assumption obviously turned out to be correct. On the other hand, I had also wondered about his developmental upside relative to other prospects his age and whether he would improve at the same rate as them. Doncic has improved just fine and so far, that seems wrong.

With Doncic cooling off during the latter stages of the season, his critics have increased in numbers and become louder and louder. At the same time, the other half of the online draft community seemingly refuses to acknowledge Doncic’s recent struggles and treat his projection as if he still has the 74 percent true shooting mark from December. There is very little in between with Doncic, whether you praise him or criticize him, one of the two factions is sure to jump down your throat and refuse to acknowledge the possibility of Doncic having any strengths or weaknesses as a prospect. Since he is still my top prospect for the time being and a top three prospect according to mainstream consensus, I thought I’d do my best to fairly assess him and try to figure out how clearly of a number one pick he really is.

Going into this article I expected it to be a wake up call to some of the people still rating Doncic number one overall by a mile. You are certainly entitled to that opinion and I would even say it still has its merits. However, many of us wouldn’t be closely following Euroleague if not for Doncic and have sort of formed an opinion on him during his hot shooting stretch in the start of the year and have since stuck with those impressions. It’s always important to keep up with prospects for as long as possible and not allow your initial impressions to dominate your overall evaluation.

Two Doncic’s, One Season

First off, I put together the numbers above after game two in the Panathinaikos series, so they don’t include Doncic’s last few games. I did not purposely choose this as a cut off point, it just happens that was the day that I made the chart.

Let’s go through the categories one by one. The points are down drastically, almost 9 per 40 minutes, but much more alarming is how that’s reflected in eFG%. I didn’t bother to calculate actual usage, but judging by the field goal attempts and turnovers, it hasn’t drastically changed. He just can’t hit the back side of a barn in recent play. While the 2-point percent is also down, Doncic’s 3-point percentage being just 21.3 compared to the 35.6 that he started the season with is a huge difference. A 42.8 eFG% is absolutely terrible and as good of a playmaker as Doncic is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has been a net negative on the offensive end during this stretch. The turnovers are up as well, and 4.4 turnovers per 40 minutes is a very high number. Fatigue has been often used as an excuse for these struggles and there might be some truth to that since his free throw shooting is down almost 7 percent. Since he has played roughly as many total minutes as most top college players, if Doncic is indeed “tired” it would mean his conditioning is a glaring weakness. In order to face the grueling NBA schedule, he’ll need drastic development in that area.

While Doncic has clearly struggled scoring and taking care off the ball, it’s important to note that his assists are actually up. This immediately makes me think that teams have devoted a larger section of the game plan to stopping him and more than likely have been trapping him and bringing extra defenders to his side of the floor in an attempt to get the ball out of his hands. I’ll get into the film in a moment, but (spoiler alert) this assumption has turned out to be mostly true.

Doncic’s steals and blocks are also up in recent games. The increase isn’t huge, but it’s enough to make me think that Doncic’s struggles offensively and his fatigue can be partly attributed to him turning up the effort on the defensive end. No one I know watches more European basketball than Trevor Magnatti, so I asked what he thought of this theory:

“That’s exactly it. I think he was relaxing on defense early on because of the offensive load and the part of the season where he was worst coincided with when both Anthony Randolph and Gustavo Ayon were injured, too. I think the defensive performance we’re seeing lately is actually because of the offensive dip. I think especially in this series, Panathinaikos is trying to just strong-arm him and deny his offensive creation attempts and they’re being really physical with him. Since he can’t contribute in the same way on offense, I think he’s responding by busting ass on defense while others take the scoring load.”

All that being said, Doncic is clearly heavily dependent on jump shooting to really get going and that part of his game is still really streaky. Also, a lot of this is a simple regression to the mean after his hot start. With the type of shots he has had to take for Real Madrid this season, I’d say 30.4 percent is pretty close to his “real” 3-point percentage. Of course, keep in mind that he only turned 19 a couple of months ago and is playing against the best competition in the world outside the NBA. The number of attempts he has had and his 80.5 free throw percentage are all extremely positive indicators for Doncic’s future as a shooter. At least in Euroleague, Doncic also shot ridiculously well in the midrange, so the shot seems to be there.

Real Madrid Film Room

That’s the statistical analysis of the recent slump, but what about the eye test? First off, I’m not even close to being one of the best when it comes to analyzing shot mechanics, but via my basic understanding and what I’ve heard from those more knowledgeable than me, Doncic’s stroke is totally fine. There are some slight adjustments he could make on the wind up in order to have a more fluid and quicker release, but it’s not a serious issue. Going back and watching three Real Madrid games from early in the year, it was obvious that Doncic hasn’t been getting the same types of looks in recent play. Everyone knows about his lack of elite athletic ability and quickness in particular. Doncic isn’t always able to turn the corner and consistently beat his man in one-on-one situations in the half court. When it comes to creating separation, his step back 3-pointer is sort of his go to move. He gets to the basket a good deal, but it’s mostly in transition (where his top speed is actually pretty good) or attacking closeouts (where he does an excellent job timing his drives and catching defenders right at the moment that they are off balance).

However, as the season continued teams really made an effort to focus on Doncic. Remember, he was only a role player last year. I’m sure as he dominated Euroleague in the early stages of the regular season, larger and larger chunks of scouting reports became dedicated to him. By the end of the season, defenders certainly seemed to be more hesitant to help off him. Not only was his shooting experiencing a regression to the mean, Doncic was forced to create off the dribble one-on-one more and most opponents designed their entire scheme around stopping him. In the following clip, notice Chris Singleton and Nick Calathes sliding deep into the paint on the weak side to help on Doncic’s drive.

At the end of the possession above, Doncic goes to his patented step back, but is way off on the shot. I know long twos are out of style, but with Doncic shooting over 50 percent on mid-range jump shots, my solution would be to see him take more of those. I think he should have just pulled up for a long two in this play, instead of going for the tough and out of rhythm step back 3-pointer.

By the end of the year, the opposing teams best wing defender was almost always focusing solely on “shutting down” Doncic. In the play below, Alberto Abalde, one of the best young defenders in Europe, gives Doncic a great deal of trouble and Doncic is forced to pass it off.

Doncic is also trapped in that play and from my viewing teams would almost always hard hedge or straight blitz when Doncic ran pick-and-roll in the latter stages of the year.

In the play below, you can see why Doncic should’ve probably taken more mid-range jumpers since the step back was becoming a little easy to see coming for opposing defenders.

As Doncic’s shooting percentages went down, Doncic seemed to lose confidence as a shooter and teams would even let him take 3s as long as they could take away his ability to get in the paint and set up teammates.

Even when Doncic was able to penetrate, it sometimes seemed like he had to beat almost the entire opposing team to do so.

While I had some doubts about Doncic’s ability to keep up his shooting numbers from early in the season, I was extremely impressed by the way he had cut down on turnovers. Decision-making was one of his biggest weakness in 2016-17, as he often forced flashy passes to the tune of a 21.2 turnover rate. This is relatively common for younger players, but I did not expect the drastic improvement he seemed to show and recall several months into the year his turnover rate was just 12. However, looking back that seems to have been somewhat of an anomaly and with his jump shot no longer a huge weapon and opposing defenders giving Doncic so much extra attention, the silly passes and lack of focus and discipline is back.

This may be the sort of thing that’s tougher to improve upon than consistency as a jump shooter. If Doncic is to become a primary option for a contender in the NBA, having a turnover percent above 20 is problematic, especially for a high usage wing.

All that being said, watching these games back I realized something else that I wasn’t totally expecting. That last gif where Doncic floats into the paint and gets his pass stolen? Look at what happens immediately after.

There is plenty more where that came from, as Doncic’s transition defense was excellent in general.

Everyone knows that Doncic struggles staying in front of quicker, more athletic players as an on ball defender.

However, as Lonzo Ball has shown this year, point of attack defense is generally overrated and great team defenders are able to provide much more value than one-on-one “stoppers”. Doncic is obviously a player with high level feel and IQ, but his quick hands really stood out as well.

He even showed some juice as a rim protector, thanks to his anticipation and solid size. Watch as he stifles yet another early clock opportunity.

So yes, Doncic will need to improve his shot selection and cut down on the unforced errors. His lack of pop and athletic fluidity makes it necessary that he is an efficient jump shooter, at least if he is to reach the expectations that come with being rated as the top prospect in his class. There are no excuses in those areas for a player who will never have the elite finishing ability of more physically capable stars.

However, what hasn’t gotten nearly enough publicity in his projection is the way his combination of feel, instincts and size show up on the defensive end. I am of the opinion that Doncic has a substantial chance to be a legitimate two-way difference-maker. Even if he doesn’t bring as much high usage offensive value as other top perimeter players, he could make up for that with stellar team defense, while filling in the role of a second or third offensive option. That role may actually be better suited for his current skill-set and should allow him to produce with much higher efficiency. I still believe he has a chance at the high offensive ceiling that he seemed to flash early in the year, but while I’m less certain in that outcome, I’ve been further reassured of his high floor.

So how does he compare to the other top prospects in this class? I realize that big boards should be all about upside. As long as I was confident in their top end outcomes being higher, I wouldn’t mind putting Jaren Jackson, Trae Young or any other prospect over Doncic even if they had a significantly lower floor. However, I’m not certain that’s the case here. I would probably say Jackson has a slightly higher upside, but a not insignificantly lower floor. The difference between the two prospects is much smaller in my mind now than it was a few months ago. I’ll certainly go back over Jackson’s and every other top prospect’s numbers and tape one more time before completing my final big board in June. However, the slight advantage in upside Jackson has is too small to be difference-making. Doncic’s underrated defensive ability really puts me at ease in regards to his recent struggles. Right now, Doncic and Jackson are as close as it gets for two players in separate tiers, but I’d still be comfortable taking Doncic first overall.