Luka Dončić is a BUST and other exciting news

So I have this to say.

Luka Dončić is going to bust.

This is considered a crazy thing to say by most basketball fans. Their argument basically hinges on these points:

1. Dončić is dominating Euroleague, which is widely considered the second-best basketball league in the world (just ahead of my YMCA league but behind my intramural 3v3 Claremont Consortium league). This is true, but it's also missing a few key points about what Euroleague basketball actually looks like, which I'll get to in a bit.
2. Dončić is basically the best European prospect ever, and has a skillset that looks like it will translate fairly well to modern NBA basketball. This is because he's allegedly a killer three-point shooter (he's 30.9% this year from the Euro three, which I'm going to assume is the FIBA three, i.e. 19.25 inches shorter than the NBA three, which is just... so impressive) and is allegedly a great passer (cards on the table, I do actually think he's a pretty good passer).
3. Supposedly he's a "sure thing" with a "high floor," both of which are bullshit platitudes NBA fans tell themselves to convince themselves that they're not completely awful at projecting players -- which they are. Accept this. NBA front offices get paid millions of dollars to be very wrong about player prospects. Fans are almost guaranteed to be worse (unless they're me). The thing is, in the NBA there are no sure things (because Darko Miličić, Michael Beasley, Kwame Brown, and Sam Bowie exist, in case you forgot) and there are no high floors (because... you get the picture). Dončić's floor, much like everyone's floor, is Anthony Bennett.

Let's first double back to Euroleague and explain why it's a garbage league full of garbage players. Basically, Euro guys can't play D. I'm not trying to be like continent-ist, but seriously, go watch any Dončić tape and watch what the guys trying to defend him are doing. He has the slowest first step I think I've ever seen in a "high-end" prospect, and guys go FLYING. He gets wide-open shots because every single European pro is a sub-NBA-quality athlete (which is why they're Euro pros, if you were wondering), with a handful of exceptions, of which Dončić is supposedly one. Even if we give them lots of respect in the skill department (which I'm categorically unwilling to do; these are not NBA-adjacent players no matter how you slice it), there's no question that there's a big imbalance between how they compare to NBA players skill-wise and how they compare athletically. Dončić is feasting on guys who wouldn't make NBA benches, but somehow this gives him the highest floor in the draft?

Dončić is not projected as a particularly strong defensive prospect, and rightly so. But this means he's being drafted strictly on offensive merit, and he's playing against guys who are, defensively, at what I'd feel comfortable calling sub-D-I level. In other words, the supposedly higher level of competition in Euroleague vs. NCAA doesn't apply here; Dončić is in fact benefiting from the relative lack of athleticism in Europe.

I don't have a horse in this fight (my Lakers aren't going to have a top-two pick hopefully ever again, and don't pick until 25 this year, and plus I don't have much love for either top-two team this year, although I prefer the Suns). I just like making predictions and being proven right and then having no one ever pay attention. It's kinda my thing. (And yes I'm still coming back to that, because holy shit I got every one of those predictions right, except the Bortles Pro Bowl thing.)

Other Stuff

• I really like Deandre Ayton. I love his offensive game. He's the best big-man finisher I've seen in YEARS (as in I could see him being the best offensive big man since Yao, no shit), and he's got some nice range. I have concerns about his D, but with that kind of athleticism (I mean what the fuck) I have confidence he'll figure it out. Or he won't. Phoenix's problem, not mine.
• By the way, Phoenix is taking Ayton. Dončić will go to Sacramento, where he belongs.
• I also really like Mo Bamba, and not just because his name sounds like a bad reverse-portmanteau of Mamba. I like him for the opposite reasons of why I like Ayton. His offensive game is super shaky and his shot is streaky (but rangy), but on D he's one of the better shot-blockers I've ever seen at the college level. I think he has upside in the Mutombo range on D.
• I'm kind of in love with Trae Young. Only in this fucked-up basketball antifan world could we watch a freshman become the first PLAYER to ever lead the nation in points and assists in the same season and conclude that he's overrated. I mean, what the fuck? I'm saying that a lot lately, but shit, everyone is wrong about EVERYTHING IN THIS DRAFT. The other thing I love about Young, besides the fact that he's just obviously the best offensive prospect in this draft class and one of the best ever (because duh), is that he takes more of his threes from NBA range than any other prospect I've ever seen. Like 90%+ of his three point attempts are from 24+ feet, often way more. He's taking 30-footers like Steph, and making a really solid number of them (he shot 36% from primarily the NBA three, which is way better than probably any college prospect ever). His defensive ceiling is limited, but shit, so is Dončić's, and nobody's saying Trae Young is the best player in this draft (even though he is). I'm going to have to become a part-time fan of whatever team drafts him.

For context (this the Trae Young show now), two freshmen have ever led the NCAA in scoring, and three freshmen have ever led it in assists (most recently the great Lonzo Ball, if you were wondering). Young is one of each. I don't care if he's 5'5 with a 6-second 40 (what sport is this?), that's incredible.  It's one of the great achievements in college sports history. (Also up there: Pete Maravich leading the nation in scoring three years in a row, with an average average of 44.2 PPG.) And, by the way, he's not; he's like 6'2 with a 6'3 wingspan, which isn't ideal, but is about half an inch shorter (wingspan) than Steph Curry's, an inch and a quarter shorter than Chris Paul's, and 3.5" longer than T.J. Ford's, who's the other freshman to lead the NCAA in assists. This obviously isn't a guarantee that Young will succeed defensively in the NBA, but it is evidence that he isn't exactly a T-Rex/Isaiah Thomas/Nate Robinson type coming in with a great shooting talent and very little else.

Someone get me off this subject. Let's talk about Mitchell Robinson.

Mitchell Robinson is weird. He was dominant in high school (think 15-20 points, 11-14 rebounds, 4-8 blocks, depending on competition), then went to Western Kentucky (?) and got immediately cut (behavioral). He's basically been chilling for a year and is now available for the draft, but it's really hard to predict what kind of a prospect he actually is. This is literally (according to Wikipedia) unprecedented.

Also interesting: Robinson has intimated and all but stated outright that he won't play for anyone but the Lakers (who pick, again, at 25, which is just a little behind where he's projected). Hello there.