Luka Doncic is a lot of things — brilliant passer and the best pick-and-roll operator in the league, among much more — but he’s not a guy who passes the eye test for an elite international athlete at first glance.
He didn’t with Dirk Nowitzki, who was at the end of his Hall of Fame career and played his final season with Doncic in kind of a passing-the-torch season. Appearing on the “All The Smoke” podcast, Nowitzki talked about his first impression of Doncic.
Dirk was skeptical about Luka at first.
— SHOWTIME Basketball (@shobasketball) December 4, 2023
But after spending more time with him, he saw the @dallasmavs’ vision.
Watch the latest episode of All The Smoke with @swish41 on our YouTube.#MFFL pic.twitter.com/OU3ALiqB9v
“The end of my career wasn’t pretty. We were struggling. There was some talk of tanking. We needed a little spark plug to change things. I didn’t think it was going to be this kid [Doncic]. When he walked in the first time, he looked like a big boy, but I’m like, ‘I’m not sure this is going to work. Is he quick enough? Is he athletic enough to go by guys like he is in Europe?’ So there were plenty of doubts there, from everybody on the team...
"[In pre-camp workouts] guys were trying to test him a little bit (before training camp started) and you know foul him a little bit here and there in their scrimmages. And you can already see that this kid’s got something about him. He’s got that swag. He knows how to play. He was getting some AND1 mixtape passes out of nowhere. And I’m like, he was flashing some of the talent.”
Nowitzki admitted he didn’t think Doncic would be this good. Later in the interview, Nowitzki pushed back on the idea he was a mentor to Doncic.
“I guess we’re friends, we’re cool...you know, when I’m in town, we go to dinners or whatever. A mentor would be a little strong.”
To which Doncic responded:
@swish41 you guess we are friends? 🥲🥲😂 https://t.co/m7VkwGNeDu
— Luka Doncic (@luka7doncic) December 4, 2023
You can be sure if Doncic can lead Dallas to another ring, Nowitzki will be courtside cheering his friend on.
