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Are Dallas Mavericks players getting tired of playing with Luka Doncic?
The Slovenian superstar is undoubtedly one of the NBA’s best players, but according to a new report, his ball-dominance is wearing thin among teammates.
A veteran assistant coach recently told Howard Beck of The Ringer that “you can almost sense a ‘sigh of relief’ among Doncic’s teammates when he checks out of a game.”
The coach told Beck that Doncic heading to the bench “opens up a little more freedom” for his teammates. “It’s a sense of, ‘Hey, now we get to play,’” the coach said. “It’s difficult to have any rhythm if you’re not touching the ball.”
Doncic is perhaps the best on-ball player in the league offensively. But he’s on the ball a lot.
Usage rate is an NBA statistic that calculates of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor.
The calculation is as follows:
100*((Player’s Field Goal Attempts)+0.44*(Player’s Free Throw Attempts)+(Player’s Turnovers))*(Team’s Total Minutes)
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((Team’s Total Field Goal Attempts)+0.44*(Team’s Total Free Throw Attempts)+Team’s Total Turnovers))*5*(Player’s Minutes)
Doncic finished second in the NBA among qualified players in usage rate (35.5) in the regular season, behind only Philadelphia 76ers superstar Joel Embiid (38.7).
That number has dropped slightly to 33.6 percent in the playoffs, behind Embiid, Donovan Mitchell and Jalen Brunson. But he’s still accounting for more than one-third of his team’s turnovers.
“He’s mesmerizing with the basketball. But as a teammate, it’s—it’s a little exhausting watching the same s— over and over again,” Ex-NBA player Chandler Parsons previousy said of Doncic. “And then when you don’t win, it’s even magnified. Like, ‘OK, can we try something else? Can I maybe get the ball?’ It definitely can be frustrating.”
Notably, Parsons never played with Doncic.
But it’s clear that Doncic’s style can be a bit difficult on teammates.