Currently in his 5th season in the NBA, Luka Doncic continues to prove to the world why he’s a consensus top 5 player in the world. In 11 games played for the Mavericks this 2022-23 season, he’s averaging 33.6 points, 7.9 assists, and 8.3 rebounds a night. He’s yet to find his stroke from beyond the arc but his 2-point percentage sits at a whopping 60%.
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He’s doing all of this at merely 23 years of age. A lot of players enter the league at the age that Doncic is currently at and here we have the Slovenian point-forward putting up historic statlines on a nightly basis. Though, don’t ask him about his statistics as he doesn’t seem to care all too much about them.
A player that Doncic has been compared over the years has been LeBron James. The way they play inside of the arc is certainly different, with James having been most explosive. However, their tendencies as a point-forward certainly have similarities with one another.
Tim Hardaway Sr on 23 y/o Luka Doncic vs 23 y/o LeBron James
Tim Hardaway Sr was recently interviewed by Sportslens and was asked who he would take between a 23 year old Luka Doncic and a 23 year old LeBron James. The Heat legend shockingly chose the former, claiming Doncic has had professional experience since the age of 16, unlike LeBron who entered the league at 18.
Luka was famously a part of the Real Madrid basketball club from the 2014-15 season till the 2017-18 season. This would mean a 15-16 y/o Luka did indeed play for a professional basketball team in one of the best leagues in the world.
While this is a sound argument from Tim Hardaway, it should be noted that LeBron James didn’t take 3 years to figure out the NBA, like he said he did. James won Rookie of the Year honors in 2004 and went on to average 27.2/7.2/7.4 in merely his sophomore. There may however, be a bit of a bias here as his son plays with Doncic on the Mavericks.
Tim Hardaway Sr picks Michael Jordan over LeBron James
When asked about who was the greatest player of all time in his book when it came to choosing between Michael Jordan and LeBron James, Tim Hardaway Sr chose the former without any hesitation.
This makes complete sense for Hardaway as he played in Jordan’s era and retired the same year LeBron would be slated to come into the league. He never experienced what it was like to play against ‘The King’ and instead came to know what playing a prime Jordan was like all throughout the 90s.
