{"id":56988,"date":"2023-10-21T07:00:39","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=56988"},"modified":"2023-10-19T21:20:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T01:20:16","slug":"top-25-nba-players-2023-24-no-4-luka-doncic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/10\/21\/top-25-nba-players-2023-24-no-4-luka-doncic\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 25 NBA players 2023-24: No. 4 Luka Doncic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we continue to evaluate and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/10\/18\/top-25-nba-players-2023-24-no-6-jayson-tatum\/\" target=\"_self\">rank<\/a> the top 25 players in the league we shift our attention to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doncilu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Luka Doncic<\/strong><\/a>. An elite offensive player and one of the most skilled players of all time. At 24 Luka already has an elite resume and has had huge playoff moments. Luka has had elite production for years but he now needs to win at a higher level.<\/p>\n<h2>Top 25 NBA players 2023-24: No. 4 Luka Doncic<\/h2>\n<h3>An All-Around Offensive threat<\/h3>\n<p>Since entering the league in 2018 Luka Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s incredible offensive talent has been abundantly clear. At 6\u20197 Luka has elite size for a point guard. He combines that size with an incredible offensive skill set. Doncic is one of the most effective yet effortless scorers in the game. Luka\u2019s unique combination of size, elite shot-creation, and shooting abilities makes him an unguardable scorer. Since his second year, Luka has averaged at least 28 points a game. Including an absurd 32 ppg last year. As a result, Doncic has been named to the All-NBA first team for four consecutive seasons. Furthermore, Luka is one of the league&#8217;s best passers and an elite rebounding guard. This all comes together to make one of the best all-around offensive games the league has ever seen.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How Luka Doncic attacks defenses by going sideways\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mIeF8mDSNZE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Season Recap<\/h3>\n<p>Last year had its ups and downs for Doncic. On one hand, he had another stellar season from a production standpoint. Luka put up insane stat lines regularly. Fully establishing himself as the most effortless and gifted scorer in the league in the process. The culmination of this was an absurd 60-point, 20-rebound, 10-assist masterclass from Luka in a December game against the Knicks. Doncic\u2019s game is not only one of the best performances of the year but one of the best performances of all time.<\/p>\n<p>In February the Mavericks were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/leagues\/NBA_2023_standings_by_date_western_conference.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">4th<\/a> in the West and Luka was still in the MVP conversations. However, after trading for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a><\/strong> at the deadline the Mavericks plummeted down the standings. The Mavericks&#8217; poor defense and the repetitive <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/07\/08\/can-luka-doncic-and-kyrie-irving-co-exist\/\" target=\"_self\">fit<\/a> of Luka and Kyrie were central to the team&#8217;s shortcomings. Ultimately the Mavericks fell out of the play-in tournament finishing 11th in the conference. A complete failure of the season from a team success perspective.<\/p>\n<h3>Season Outlook<\/h3>\n<p>During the off-season, Dallas re-tooled their roster addressing their defensive flaws in the process. The Mavericks re-signed Irving to maintain their star power. While picking up a high-quality defender in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willigr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Grant Williams<\/a><\/strong> and two rookie defensive specialists in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/livelde01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dereck Lively<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/prospol01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Olivier-Maxence Prosper<\/a><\/strong>. While it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/07\/27\/dereck-lively-ii-was-the-wrong-choice-for-the-dallas-mavericks\/\" target=\"_self\">unclear<\/a> how impactful these rookies will be from the jump these moves certainly <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/08\/21\/2023-24-nba-power-rankings-offseason-edition-no-15-dallas-mavericks\/\" target=\"_self\">improve<\/a> their roster. Similarly, more court time with Luka and Kyrie will improve the duo&#8217;s effectiveness and fit. Regardless of how good Dallas will be, Luka will surely have another incredible season from a statistical and production standpoint. The scary part is at 24 years old we have likely not seen the final version of Luka. Furthermore, if the Mavericks can find regular-season success Luka will be an MVP frontrunner.<\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word on Luka Doncic<\/h3>\n<p>Ultimately Luka is an incredibly talented young superstar and one of the most entertaining players to watch. While his production is never a question, if Luka can have more team success it would further prove his value. Likely moving him into the top <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/10\/17\/how-many-current-nba-players-rank-ahead-of-luka-doncic\/\" target=\"_self\">three<\/a> as a result. Regardless, Luka will remain a constant problem for the rest of the league for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we continue to evaluate and rank the top 25 players in the league we shift our attention to Luka Doncic. An elite offensive player and one of the most skilled players of all time. At 24 Luka already has an elite resume and has had huge playoff moments. Luka has had elite production for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4779,"featured_media":57017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1608,62],"tags":[1133,4210,5031],"class_list":["post-56988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-luka-doncic","tag-mavericks-featured","tag-nba-player-rankings"],"modified_by":"Jacob Stephens, Associate Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4779"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}