{"id":97104,"date":"2024-09-23T15:07:13","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T19:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=97104"},"modified":"2024-09-23T15:07:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T19:07:29","slug":"mavs-luka-doncic-one-legendary-duke-coach-k-favorite-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/09\/23\/mavs-luka-doncic-one-legendary-duke-coach-k-favorite-players\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavs Star Was One Of Legendary Duke Coach\u2019s \u2018Favorite Players\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Orlando Magic forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/banchpa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paolo Banchero<\/a> is one of many lottery picks that Duke has produced. If former Blue Devils head coach Mike Krzyzewski had his way, Dallas Mavericks point guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doncilu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luka Doncic<\/a> probably would\u2019ve been one as well.<\/p>\n<h2>Mavs\u2019 Luka Doncic Was One Of Legendary Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski\u2019s \u2018Favorite Players\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cHe got Duke written all over him,\u201d Banchero says of Doncic, when asked where he thinks the perennial MVP candidate would\u2019ve attended college. Recalling his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2020\/08\/24\/paolo-banchero-duke\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">own recruitment experience<\/a>, he says that Doncic is \u201clike one of Coach K\u2019s favorite players.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember when he was recruiting me, it was during the (NBA) bubble, and he would call me and he\u2019d be like are you watching Luka Doncic right now?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Luka said if went to college in the US he would\u2019ve went to ARIZONA \ud83d\udc40 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/R3mAcHYse7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/R3mAcHYse7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Overtime (@overtime) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/overtime\/status\/1837630900349423994?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 21, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Like, you gotta go watch Luka. Like that\u2019s what you gotta be like.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Luka To Arizona?<\/h3>\n<p>Doncic says he would\u2019ve went to the University of Arizona, though he didn\u2019t make it sound too convincing. At the time, Arizona was coached by Sean Miller, a three-time Pac-12 (and one-time A-10) Coach of the Year. The Wildcats were coming off of their sixth consecutive NCAA Tournament. However, they had been eliminated in the First Round for the second time in three years.<\/p>\n<p>All things considered, there\u2019s a possibility that the success of their coach and program could\u2019ve appealed to Doncic. After all, Real Madrid was one of the EuroLeague\u2019s top teams by the time he left for the NBA. Furthermore, though there\u2019s no indication that he had any contact with Miller or Arizona, the Phoenix Suns has a long history of drafting European players:<\/p>\n<p>Georgian center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/tsakaja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jake Tsakalidis<\/a> was drafted in the first round in 2000; Serbian power forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cabarza01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u017darko \u010cabarkapa<\/a> was drafted just outside of the lottery in 2003; Spanish point guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rodrise01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sergio Rodriguez<\/a> was drafted in the first round in 2006; Bosnian power forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/preldem01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Emir Preld\u017ei\u0107<\/a> was a second round selection in the 2009 NBA Draft; and Bosnian big man <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bendedr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dragan Bender<\/a> was the fourth overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n<p>Doncic may have heard good things about Arizona even then.<\/p>\n<h3>Duke Too Hard To Ignore?<\/h3>\n<p>A lot of foreign basketball players who live abroad are often drawn to powerhouses. This isn\u2019t just because of those teams\u2019 excellence. As it turns out, they just don\u2019t have the opportunity to digest as much American basketball. Subsequently, they\u2019ll be fixated on teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, for example.<\/p>\n<p>So, when it comes to who Doncic would\u2019ve chosen to play for in college, the Blue Devils may have had the upper hand.<\/p>\n<p>A blue blood program, Duke has won five national champions in college basketball. Those championships came while they were coached by Krzyzewski, one of the most recognizable figures in the sports world. So admired and expected was he that he even coached the U.S. men\u2019s national basketball team.<\/p>\n<p>This obviously isn\u2019t true for every prospect. However, for someone of Doncic\u2019s stature, having the opportunity to star for Duke had a high probability of outweighing a future at Arizona. Unfortunately for Coach K and the Blue Devils, they never had a chance to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero is one of many lottery picks that Duke has produced. If former Blue Devils head coach Mike Krzyzewski had his way, Dallas Mavericks point guard Luka Doncic probably would\u2019ve been one as well. Mavs\u2019 Luka Doncic Was One Of Legendary Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski\u2019s \u2018Favorite Players\u2019 \u201cHe got Duke written [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":97206,"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":[30,1608,62,3,17],"tags":[846,861,1133,2474,3823,1427],"class_list":["post-97104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-magic","tag-arizona-wildcats","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-luka-doncic","tag-mike-krzyzewski","tag-paolo-banchero","tag-sean-miller"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97104","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\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}