ESPN's Jay Williams just denounced Luka Doncic's capacity to win based on Luka's "losing habits," but Williams seems to forget that Luka led the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals less than two years ago.
To support his argument, Williams brought up Luka's excessive turnovers (Doncic leads the NBA in giveaways per game at 4.1), but again, Williams ignored the fact that Doncic averaged just as many turnovers in 2023-24 when he led the Mavs to near-immortality.
Jay Williams's Luka Doncic take completely ignores recent NBA history
Williams's head-scratching take didn't end there. He pointed out that Luka is tied for last in offensive impact among the 13 NBA players whose usage rate exceeds 30 percent this season.
The problem with Williams pointing this out is that Doncic is tied with Kawhi Leonard in this statistic, and Kawhi has looked like one of the best two or three players in the world since Thanksgiving. In other words, Williams's chosen metric is a bit hollow.
Williams did briefly mention Luka's problem whining to the refs, which was a worthy note.
Even so, Williams's overall thesis fell flat, mostly because it acts like the 2024 NBA playoffs never happened.
"I just don't know if he's the leader that people are projecting him to be," Williams said to close his remarks.
But Jay, who led the Mavericks through the difficult Western Conference playoffs and into the Finals in '24?
Likewise, who led the Mavs to the Western Conference Finals in 2022?
Williams is questioning the leadership capacity of a player who, at 23 years old, powered Dallas to the Conference Finals (with a good, not great roster, by the way).
We get it -- Luka has struggled to establish winning chemistry with LeBron James and transform the Lakers into an immediate contender since his arrival a year ago.
He complains way too much to the refs, and he hasn't always been in good shape while wearing purple and gold.
His defense has been embarrassing at times.
All fair. But to challenge Luka's capacity to lead a team to a title, when he's already come mighty close on one occasion and not far off on another, is to ignore history and pretend like Doncic hasn't experienced substantial team success in the NBA.
Williams's Luka take doesn't survive unless you ignore what Doncic did in Dallas, but doing so invalidates the entire argument, to begin with.
Luka isn't a losing player. He's won big in the NBA at a young age, and he will again. Just because that might not happen this season doesn't mean it can't and won't in the near future.