Attention Luka Doncic: you’re still a totally rad dude, but you’re going too far down the James Harden road by drawing all these fouls. Harden is an elite player who absolutely deserved his MVP and helps his team wins tons of games, but does anyone actually watch his highlights? No, at least compared to other superstars. Free throws are a great way to score and to help your team, but they suck as material for highlights. Don’t stray too far down that shadowed lane with the sign at the fork saying “go this way if you want people to turn on you in a few years”. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
This is the third game out of four where he’s had double-digit free throw attempts. He’s getting the benefit of some whistles that he wasn’t at the beginning of the season. Again, that’s great. I’m sure Mavs fans are pleased as heck. But I’m not. I want more stepback threes, heck, I’ll even take more floaters even though I hate floaters because at least those things are buckets.
In addition to stepping up the foul-drawing, he’s been getting a lot of assists lately, culminating in this 12-assist performance which is his first game with double-digit dimes. He was whipping cross-court passes across the court (redundancy alert) with impunity tonight, making Harrison Barnes look like the All-Star that he almost is. And he connected on a lob with Dwight Powell! If he really wants to be the assist king of Dallas, he needs to pick J.J. Barea’s brain over how to throw endless lobs to Powell.