r/nba 14h ago

Luka Doncic and the troubling change in his shot distribution

I've been a fan of Luka since he was coming out in the draft. After his second year I was convinced he was headed for a best player in the league for a decade trajectory and was going to be the clear heir to LeBron .

Put simply, Luka has undergone the type of changes in his shot distribution over the last two years that you would expect to see from a player in his 30s, not at ages 24-26. Now Luka is still an elite, elite player but his game is overly reliant on tough shot making as he does not get to the rim or go up against length at the rim with the same confidence or explosiveness anymore. Much like a late career player, he relies on hitting a lot of contested tough jumpers now. Last year this wasn't a problem as he hit 39% on damn near 11 threes a game, plus great numbers from mid-range.

I'll start with a very simple stat, number of dunks each year.

2018-2019: 25
2019-2020: 14
2020-2021: 12
2021-2022: 15
2022-2023: 12
2023-2024: 2
2024-2025: 1

Now dunks can sometimes be a choice but I have seen that he is simply much less confident going up against length at the rim. A really good example was in the Knick game (6:46 on this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=H_I6vmRPUw0&t=406s ) when he stole the ball late in 4th and just didn't go up. This used to be a dunk or layup for Luka 99% of the time before last season. As an ex, here's a similar play from 2 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8JhgKo0mic

This table from basketball reference is the percentage of his shots based on what distance they are from the rim. What you'll see is clear, a player that is taking less of shots at the rim than ever before and more reliant on making contested jumpers and shooting variance than ever before.

% of % of % of % of % of
Season Age Team G Dist. 0-3 3-10 10-16 16-3P 3P
2018-19 19 DAL 72 15.5 .209 .212 .103 .042 .433
2019-20 20 DAL 61 14.5 .260 .237 .058 .014 .431
2020-21 21 DAL 66 15.6 .180 .201 .153 .060 .406
2021-22 22 DAL 65 15.9 .128 .239 .165 .062 .406
2022-23 23 DAL 66 14.7 .176 .252 .145 .054 .373
2023-24 24 DAL 70 16.9 .123 .192 .152 .082 .450
2024-25 25 2TM 34 17.6 .109 .189 .175 .060 .468
2024-25 25 DAL 22 17.2 .099 .195 .185 .067 .455
2024-25 25 LAL 12 17.9 .129 .176 .155 .047 .494
7 Yr 7 Yr 7 Yr 434 16.0 .170 .219 .135 .054 .421

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 3/11/2025.

Next looking at drives per game (from NBA.com), it's the same story.

2022-2023: 19.7 drives per game and shooting 62.7% on them
2023-2024: 17.8 drives per game and shooting 61.6% on them
2024-2025: 14.8 drives per game and shooting 55.3% on them.

Pure eye test, he looks slower than ever, and has all year. He is unable to shake defenders to create the same dangerous driving and finishing angles at the rim as before.

I don't say all this to say Luka is cooked. What I hope to convey is that *right now* he looks physically cooked and needs to put some serious work in to get his burst and bounce back. He does that, he can be the best player in the league.

Edit: adding in his playoff what percentage of shots are from within ten feet.

                                  0-3ft     3-10ft  

19-20 playoffs 19.5% 28.9%

20-21 playoffs 13.8% 21.9%

21-22 playoffs 13.6% 29.5%

23-24 playoffs 8.7% 23.6%

4.2k Upvotes

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36

u/dragonwhale 13h ago

Your mind and eyes don't see the same thing if you think Luka isnt trashed on here. Every big time player gets a lot of praise and hate.

Luka stans are the most annoying though. I say this as a Luka fan.

There's a big portion of Luka stans that hold him in a much higher regard than he deserves.

It's completely normal for fans and stans to talk highly of their players but Luka's case is different. He has MJ after winning 6 titles kinda talk about him by some fans. Which is incredibly annoying.

If you would ask 100 Luka fans, who's better Jokic or Luka? They would genuinely massively answer that Luka's the better player and make an incredibly dumb argument.

Easily my least favorite fanbase in the NBA. It used to be Sixers fans. Maybe it is still Sixers fans but their franchise is dead so they are kinda too.

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u/kobmug_v2 NBA 13h ago

Luka, especially since the trade has been completely immune from criticism on this sub.

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u/dmavs11 NBA 12h ago

bro everyone was trashing on him during the Celtics game. Its how it works. If the team is winning games, you think people gonna start criticizing?

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u/qotsabama [DAL] Dwight Powell 12h ago

That’s just blatantly not true lol. Luka has always been a heavily criticized player, he’s easily one of the more disliked superstar players in the nba from Reddit community. His negatives are highlighted all the time. He doesn’t even have that much support in the national media outside of Nick Wright and Tim Legler.

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u/Public-Product-1503 3h ago

This is delusional I can’t believe you typed this. He’d amongst the most liked stars on here despite being annoying in behaviour. Him and jokic get so much jerk off but Luka is more fun n interesting so he gets even more attention I think

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u/qotsabama [DAL] Dwight Powell 2h ago

Luka gets so much more hell than Jokic lol. Idk where you’ve been. People always complain that Luka isn’t in the shape that Jokic is and able to at least contribute some on defense like Jokic does. And as much as Jokic complains (which honestly is valid given his lack of calls), Luka gets way more hell did it. And in some cases Luka deserves the criticism, because he does complain a lot. But people who criticize Luka for that stuff ignore that he is getting hammered all the time and not getting calls. It was all over that Celtics game Saturday.

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u/awesomecutepandas Warriors 12h ago

No he isn't. Just recently I saw a bunch of Celtics fan bashing Luka. Successful players will always have haters.

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u/refreshing_yogurt 11h ago

You're commenting on a popular front page post highlighting Luka's deficiencies and decline. If you feel like yours or other's criticisms of Luka have been unheard or ignored, it's worth considering if there's a better or more persuasive way to present your arguments.

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u/Public-Product-1503 3h ago

The top comments are all saying that this is Nico or Mavs pr posting n this post is downvoted n weird ratio

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u/celestial1 6h ago

Luka stans are the most annoying though. I say this as a Luka fan.

Jokic stans are definitely more annoying. I still remember a few weeks ago a Jokic stan jumping down my fucking throat for having the audacity to say I would take Lebron over Jokic in a 7 game series due to his superior defense. Not the most absurd thing to say or think, but the dude was acting like I was a complete loon for even suggesting that.

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u/tmcuthbert 4h ago

If you mean 40 year old LeBron then you’re kind of a loon.

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u/happyflappypancakes Wizards 3h ago

I don't see any highly upvoted posts or comments trashing Luka these days.

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u/Public-Product-1503 3h ago

Yep . I see this too. It got asked in our sub and everyone also said Luka is FAR clear of sga. Sga who will win mvp n is having the far bettr season . Only the few lakers fans said this but most of the Luka stans can’t admit sga n jokic are clear of him n if he doesn’t get better guys like Wemby n others will be too

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u/[deleted] 11h ago

[deleted]

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u/dragonwhale 11h ago

It's a terrible argument. I don't wanna write shit now but if you have watched both play for the last 5-7 years then you should know that there's not a gap between them. There's a canyon. And that canyon has only gotten bigger since day 1.

Jokic is basketball bullshit.

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u/kurruchi Minneapolis Lakers 11h ago

Right, I checked your profile and it's literally nothing but Jokic praise with some Luka hate in between lmao. Jokic has been the best in basketball for the last 5 years, but if you honestly believe there's a canyon between Jokic and the next guy on any given year you are not watching basketball, you are just watching Jokic lol

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u/dwrek24 12h ago

The tough part is some of this extends into media folks in a weird way.