None of the top 5 NBA players are American!

All NBA Team is a flawed system. Embiid had more first place votes and total points than Tatum, and he was still relegated to the 2nd team.

They should choose the top 5 players regardless of positions. After all, "position" in basketball is not a fixed thing like in baseball.

Yup

Thus endeth the notion that Luka Doncic belongs in the discussion of top 5 players in the NBA.

Honestly averaging 32/10/6 and dragging a team of role players to the WCF shouldn’t be a knock to Luka. He’s got weaknesses in his game (defense isn’t there and more importantly, fitness isn’t there to keep up with super strong motion offenses like GSW), but he arguably accomplished more this season than Bron and Embiid, who’ve both (deservedly) shown up on these top 5 lists.

Remaking the list myself, I’d probably have Embiid/Giannis/Steph/Jokic/KD as my top 5, in no particular order (maybe Giannis first if I had to rank them), and then it gets a little murky. There are reasonable arguments for Tatum, Luka, and I guess Kawhi if he returns in good form. On the periphery you have Bron (still obviously elite, but it felt like this year was a lot of empty numbers), AD (always hurt), Jimmy, Trae, Ja, PG13, Lillard, Kyrie (lol), Booker, and Cp3 (still an elite playmaker, but…he’s getting kinda old).

Luka is a GREAT player. No doubt about it. A near impossible cover for anyone in the league. So, I am not disrespecting him. Just pointing out that he shouldn't really be in the conversation of top 5 (yet).

I would point out that your "averaging 32/10/6 and dragging a team of role players to the WCF" is perhaps a bit misleading. Against Golden State, he averaged 32 points while shooting 41.5%! That is not just bad. That is horrible.

And while you claim that he dragged a team of role players to the WCF it should be noted that against GS Luka was a net minus while on the court vs his team while he was on the bench.

During Luka's 191 playing against the GS, the Warriors outscored the Mavs by 60 points.

During the 49 minutes of the series with Luka on the bench, the Mavs beat the Warriors by 17 points.

The problem with most people's player assessments is that they are based on highlights and listening to announcers gush over particular players. They are not based on actual impact on the game. If you want to win championships you have to get stops on D. Trading buckets with your opponent is great for highlights - not so great for winning championships.

Luka really needs to get in better shape and learn to play defense. Without that he is in danger of becoming the next James Harden.

Now that you mention it, yes, my earlier note aged very well indeed.

And yours? Not so much.

+ and - can be misleading because your bench could outplay the other teams bench while your starters could get killed by the other team's starters.

But Luka needs to play defense or at least attempt it.

SD and JB aren't role players, SD has made an all star game.

Cuban's gonna have to make a big move this off season.

I'm ok with the current system of all NBA voting. If I already have a team with Giannis and Jokic, i'm probably taken Tatem over Embid. Embid DID put up better stats, but swing men always take priority over the bigs in the modern NBA when building championship teams. The last two all nba first team centers to win the title the same year were Davis in 2020 and Shaq in 2006. And that 2020 team was really Lebron's team. Swing men take priority over centers, so no need to have TWO centers on the all nba first team. Championship teams aren't built around the likes of Jokic, Embid, Howards anymore. Big men could be a nice compliment to a star swing man - such as Duncan was to Kawai, but you need the star swingman first. Tatum over Embid.

Agreed on all counts.

I'd love to have Luka on my team to build around him. Just a few more parts and getting Luka to improve his defense and Dallas may be looking at many deep playoff runs (and a few titles) over the next decade.

As already mentioned, +/- is a very iffy stat for determining a player’s value — all it really means is that team A’s bench outscored team B’s by a lesser margin than A’s starters outscored B’s. The stat is basically irrelevant in blowouts where starters get rested.

Lukas shooting splits aren’t the best, but he was the single focal point of a conference finals level offense. There are a very small handful of players who can truly play that role — now mainly Giannis, Jokic, and Luka, and historically Jordan, Iverson, Nash, Harden and Bron. Thinking Basketball had a really good video on what they term “heliocentric” offense earlier this season, and I’d recommend giving it a watch to get a better idea of just how impressive Luka has been, from a statistical standpoint.

Otherwise I totally agree with you — as I said, the weaknesses in Luka’s game stem from his fitness and his defensive capacity. But if he peaks as good as prime Harden…well, that probably wins a ring. Let’s not retcon things too much here — 2017/18 Harden was a consensus top 5 player in the league and took the best team of all time to 7 games.