By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
With the San Antonio Spurs visiting the Dallas Mavericks, Gregg Popovich was asked about Luka Doncic. The Slovenian superstar yet again received massive praise from Popovich extending the answer to the extra effort necessary for international players, specifically stemming from the former Yugoslavia territory, to make it to the NBA.
“You know, when I think about it, I don’t want to hold you here forever, but I just always think about, ‘Imagine if all of Yugoslavia was together and all those guys were on one team.’ It’s exciting. I mean, you know, the Slovenians, the Croatians, the Serbians, Herzegovina, everybody. It’s so cool.” he said, relays Brad Townsend of Dallas Morning News.
“And, you know, he’s somebody that always reminds me of that when another player from that area pops up and becomes this great. It seems like there aren’t any average ones when they come to the league. If they come to the league, they’re great,” he added, “And so it throws me back to the days of [Vlade] Divac and [Zarko] Paspalj and [Toni] Kukoc and [Drazen] Petrovic and all the guys they had playing together at the same time.
Kind of like the Argentinians of a few years back. So that’s the first thought that goes through my head. And then the second thought is, I wonder ‘How the hell did you get this good from a small country?’ And I know you weren’t going on the playgrounds, like in New York City, or Los Angeles or Chicago and playing every day – with the same competition, maybe he was playing every day, but they didn’t have as much competition, probably. So you’ve got to give credit, which I think Americans hubris often denies, to the programs they have. To the coaching. To the levels of play, and what their coaches have to go through to become coaches. What the players, how disciplined they are, how many times they practice; how serious they are. It’s a big deal. And they’re great at it. So a lot of credit has to go there.”
“And then you know, for whatever reason, there seems to be a natural proclivity for the game. And while these guys from that area, they also have a great handball team. It’s kind of basketball-related, [he] probably never played team handball, but same species or same genre of game. So it’s just very interesting and wonderful to see it,” went on Popovich in the pregame press conference, “On a personal level, he really enjoys playing and I love his emotion. You know, sometimes he gets frustrated, and then he’s angry about something. Sometimes he’s laughing his ass off and enjoying the pass that he just threw or the three he hit in your face. And he’s just fun. He’s just fun. Besides being an unbelievable player.”
Doncic, 22, poured a game-high 25 points, including ten in the fourth quarter of Thursday’s contest. The Mavericks beat the Spurs coached by Popovich to improve to 3-1 early in the 2021-22 NBA Regular Season.
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