A thread on why I think Luka Doncic is the reason for Dennis Smith Jr’s downfall:

Smith was taken 9th overall in the 2017 NBA draft by Dallas. He showed a lot of promise in his rookie year averaging 15/4/5. He also became the fourth youngest player in NBA history to have a triple double at the time behind Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball and LeBron James.

Then next season Dallas traded up in the 2018 NBA Draft selecting Luka Doncic who was seen as a 6’8 Point Forward who lacked athleticism but by far the most accomplished in the draft.

Many questioned whether DSJ and Luka could play together due to their need for handling the ball. In the 18-19 season. Dallas run a lineup of DSJ Matthews Doncic Barnes DJ

As time went on Luka kept on impressing and slowly became the primary ball handler for Dallas whilst running SF/SG, which obviously disturbed DSJ as he felt as the PG he should be the primary ball handler.

A notable incident between the two occurred in December 2018 in a close game against the Pelicans. It was a 2 point gamer with 4 seconds left. It looked liked the play was for Luka due to his reaction after the play but DSJ took it for himself

Then on January 31st DSJ was traded to the Knicks along with Matthews and DJ which resulted in the Mavs getting KP, THJ, Trey Burke and Courtney Lee. In the 21 games he played for the knicks in the 18-19 season, he averaged 14/3/5

The 19-20 season was a bad one for him as he only played 34 games and started 3 of them, averaging 5/2/3. Whilst Luka now had the keys to the Mavericks team, he went on the become an MVP candidate as a sophomore.

In conclusion to this, I feel that if Luka wasn’t drafted to the Mavs DSJ would still be there and be averaging around 20ppg. He’s a very talented player but Luka pretty much stole the show from him and he has never regained that confidence back. I wish DSJ the best