Luka’s dominant week was rewarded
Luka Doncic was named the Western Conference player of the week. This is the fifth player of the week award of Luka’s young career and the first of this season. Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki had 16 player of the week awards in his career.
Luka was utterly dominant during this week averaging 43.0 points, 10.3 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game. He shot 53.2 percent from the floor and 50.0 percent from three. He posted that efficiency on 25.7 field goal attempts and 12.0 three point attempts. The combination of volume and efficiency is simply stunning.
The Mavericks went 2-1 during these games and outscored their opponents by a total of 52 points(17.3 per game) during Luka’s time on the court. One of the best ways to express his dominance during this stretch is to point out his worst numbers this week in each of the major statistical categories.
During these three games, Luka posted lows of 33 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 made threes. There have only been 281 games in NBA history that meet all of those criteria and they were Luka’s LOWS in each category. But his lows are not the only thing that were impressive. Luka broke the 50 point barrier for this first but likely not the last time of his career when he scored 51 points against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Luka had a fantastic week and it is good to see him rewarded. Luka is off to an incredibly strong start for player of the month and it is incredibly likely that he has another award in his future as he has started the month averaging 36.7 points, 10.0 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game in his 6 games so far.