Early in his Dallas Mavericks tenure, in a game he can barely remember, Derrick Jones Jr. found himself watching Luka Doncic attempt an incredible yet routine act. As Doncic prodded the defense and began to drive baseline, Jones rotated to the corner, as he’d done thousands of times in his eight-year career, just in case his teammate needed an outlet. The opposition collapsed on the Mavericks star, to the point that Jones, seeing no passing lanes, surmised that his job was finished for the possession.
Then, out of the crowd, the ball appeared, on its way toward Jones’s shooting pocket, forcing the 27-year-old to scramble.
“He threw a behind-the-back or behind-the-head pass to me,” Jones remembers. “I ain’t going to lie, I wasn’t ready for it, wasn’t expecting it, and I missed it.”
That sort of sequence has become a familiar initiation for anyone who enters Doncic’s orbit. Since the Mavericks acquired him in a draft-day trade with Atlanta for Trae Young in 2018, Doncic has become one of the league’s most dynamic offensive forces. He can shoot like Harden and pass like Magic, all with a prodding, offbeat style that forces teammates and opponents alike to adjust their games to his unpredictable flow.
[Luka] took one dribble and flung it to the corner to me. And I’m just sitting in the corner just watching the play, thinking nothing of it, and all of a sudden the ball is just flying at me. So I’m like, ‘Oh, shit.’P.J. Washington
Adapting to a star player’s all-world talent is a challenge as old as the NBA itself. In 1979, it took time for Magic Johnson’s Lakers teammates to get used to catching his famous no-look passes. “A lot of times I messed up because I thought somebody would be somewhere they weren’t,” Johnson said during his rookie season, “or because they thought I couldn’t see them when they were open. I hit a lot of people in the face at first, and I got a lot of turnovers, but I just worked at it until I got it right.”
Doncic’s teammates faced a similar adjustment four decades later when the Slovenian rookie arrived in Dallas ahead of the 2018-19 season. “There was a bunch in those first few practices in training camp where you could see that he’ll be in a pick-and-roll situation,” Mavericks center Dwight Powell tells me. “The high pass isn’t there. Can’t do a bounce pass. So you’re kind of just slow-rolling, and all of a sudden [the ball] just appears through the defender’s legs, and you’re kind of like, ‘OK, I’ve got to be ready.’”
With repetition, dropped passes and furrowed brows gave way to Doncic’s particular brand of basketball genius. He averaged six assists in his Rookie of the Year–winning campaign, immediately leaving his stylistic imprint on the Mavs. Teammates began to expect the unexpected, and an offensive flow began to emerge.
“It only takes watching him a couple of times to realize he’s got control of the game, and you need to be ready at all times,” Powell says. “He may realize you’re open before you do. Just having your eyes up, being aware of your surroundings and where you are, but making sure you’re aware of what he’s doing, because that ball can come at any time, and you may not think you’re open, but he’ll throw you into a position that you are.”
Three months ago, P.J. Washington received his own introduction to Doncic’s eccentric dishing ability. “Whenever you’re not expecting it, that’s when the passes usually come,” he told me recently. “I think early on, I was kind of shocked that they were coming so fast and coming so quick.”
Washington was drafted 12th in 2019 by Charlotte, where he spent the first four years of his career in a free-flowing offense, meaning most of his points came off the dribble or in post-up situations. But the Mavericks traded for Washington at this year’s February deadline, bringing him into a team with championship aspirations and asking him to figure it out on the fly. Washington often spots up in the corner in Dallas’s offense as Doncic initiates. During one of Washington’s first games, Doncic began a “stack action,” in which an offense uses a middle pick-and-roll while a shooter sets a back pick on the screener’s defender. Amid the controlled chaos, Luka saw Washington was open, abandoned the play, and called his new teammate’s number.
“He took one dribble and flung it to the corner to me,” Washington says. “And I’m just sitting in the corner just watching the play, thinking nothing of it, and all of a sudden the ball is just flying at me. So I’m like, ‘Oh, shit.’”
The play taught Washington an early lesson about how to coexist with Doncic. When I interviewed him last month, Washington was standing beneath the north basket at Chase Center following a late-season shootaround in the Bay Area, eyes fixed ahead, envisioning his role in an upcoming matchup against the Warriors. I asked him where he would need to be later that evening to anticipate a Luka pass.
I think for me it’s been about holding that extra second just in case the pass comes up. I have to watch the ball go up. A lot of times, [Luka] can even kind of do a shot fake and then pass it last second.Dante Exum
“I think when he’s driving for me, if he’s driving to the right, usually this left corner,” Washington responded, pointing left toward the baseline seats without breaking his state of zen. “They tend to help a lot because we have a real dynamic big, so that pass is open a lot. And even the break pass over there too,” Washington continued, pointing toward the left wing. “Either way, he’s going the opposite way, and it’s pretty much wide open.”
That night, Luka scored a game-high 30 points and tallied 11 assists, including a wraparound pass to Washington early in the first quarter, to the same corner Washington had referenced that afternoon. In the postseason, Washington has continued to be a quick study, averaging 14.2 points and shooting 39 percent from 3 on shots created in large part by Doncic.
“He likes picking on people, and whoever it is, he’s just going to pick on them all night,” Washington says. “And I think it’s pretty easy to plan off of him because as long as you’re in the right spot, he’s going to find you.”
Point guards are taught to dictate the pace of the team to match the rhythm of the game. Doncic, however, bends the pace to his will, forcing teammates to rethink conventional approaches. “He’s a late passer,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd tells me. “So he will manipulate the defense to get what he wants. But also, he is playing chess, so he has three other moves that he’s doing. And so you have to be ready for the late pass. And that sometimes is hard for a rhythm shooter. But the more that you play with him and then expect the late pass, and you practice it, it becomes easier.”
Doncic’s teammates have made that sort of unpredictability part of their preparation. Spot-up shooters such as Dante Exum have tried to mimic Luka’s no-look, behind-the-head passes in their practice routines.
“I’ve been on a lot of teams where we’re getting back on transition defense once you get in the paint,” Exum says. “I think for me it’s been about holding that extra second just in case the pass comes up. I have to watch the ball go up. A lot of times, he can even kind of do a shot fake and then pass it last second. So it’s just about not taking my feet out, just staying prepared until I see that ball is going to the rim.”
Doncic’s passing acumen puts him in the same class as Magic, Steve Nash, John Stockton, and Kidd as the most creative passers in NBA history. Now, Kidd is tasked with coaching Doncic’s spontaneous distribution while preserving the flow of the Mavericks offense.
“I think it’s easy,” Kidd says. “I look at it as a positive because he sees things … but he [also] has a feel; he understands what he’s trying to manipulate the defense to do. And so I trust that he’s going to make the right play. If it’s not throwing it to the corner or throwing for a lob, it’s that he’s going to find someone to make the game easy. And that’s what he does.”
Doncic’s inventiveness occasionally teeters on the edge. In his 29-point, 10-assist, 10-rebound closeout performance against the Thunder in the second round, Doncic had seven turnovers. But four nights later, in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, he displayed the overall offensive mastery his coach has come to expect, with 33 points, eight assists, six rebounds, and just four turnovers in 41 minutes, leading Dallas to a 108-105 victory against Minnesota’s league-leading defense.
“There are some turnovers there once in a while,” Kidd says. “But that’s just part of the game, and that’s why I love when he gets going, when he starts picking the teams apart with the pass. It just makes the game so much easier for him.” Doncic’s distribution has powered Dallas to its second Western Conference finals appearance in three seasons. His nine assists per game lead the playoffs and have helped spur breakout performances from role players such as Washington and Jones.
After Jones’s early-season lesson about the unpredictable nature of spotting up around Doncic, he went on to average a career-high 8.6 points per game, providing not only strong defense, but the ingenuity and shotmaking needed in a Luka-centric offense. In the postseason, he’s produced timely shots in crucial moments. In Game 6 against the Thunder, with the Mavericks down 10, Jones waited in the corner as Doncic danced on the perimeter, attracting a crowd of three defenders. After four dribbles, Doncic flashed to his right, probed into the lane, and skipped a pass to Jones, who canned a 3. Ten minutes later, Jones sank a fadeaway jumper to help secure a conference finals trip for the Mavs and make good on his midseason promise.
“I’m going to be ready for that,” Jones had said. “I’m going to knock that shit down every time.”
