Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points last week in an overtime win over the Bulls — the eighth-highest total in league history and one of 14 50-point games this season:
min 2p 2pa 3p 3pa ft fta reb ast pts
Mitchell 50 15 19 7 15 20 25 8 11 71
A few hours later, Klay Thompson scored 54 points in a double overtime victory over the Hawks — his first 50-point game since returning a year ago from knee and achilles injuries.
Luka Doncic, who scored 50 points three times in nine days in December, had an unprecedented 60-21-10 triple-double in an overtime win over the Knicks. The league’s best player scored nine points in the final 33 seconds of regulation to send the game into overtime.
min 2p 2pa 3p 3pa ft fta reb ast pts
Doncic 47 19 25 2 6 16 22 21 10 60
This season’s other 50-point players: Joel Embiid (twice), Devin Booker (twice), Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Pascal Siakam, Darius Garland and Stephen Curry.
His name is Luka Doncic, and he is just the sixth 21-year-old named to the All-NBA first team, joining LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Tim Duncan and Rick Barry. Other 21-year-olds who were All-NBA selections: Michael Jordan, Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant (second team) and Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard (third team).
That group (minus Howard) leads my Age 21 All-Star team.
The Mavericks point guard averaged 27.7 points, 8.0 rebounds and 8.6 assists this season. Even better, he averaged 35.7 points, 7.9 rebounds and 10.3 assists in a first-round playoff loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
Rookies of the Year | Rick Barry (1966), Bob McAdoo (1973), Jamaal Wilkes (1975), Alvan Adams (1976), Buck Williams (1982), Terry Cummings (1983), Michael Jordan (1984), Jason Kidd (1995), Allen Iverson (1997), Tim Duncan (1998), Pau Gasol (2002), Blake Griffin (2011), Ben Simmons (2018)
Luka Doncic won the NBA Rookie of the Year award last night at the NBA Awards — an anticlimactic made-for-television event that most fans don’t care about because they are thinking about Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant and free agency and not trophies for the regular season, which ended more than two months ago.
Doncic’s award was the most anticlimactic. The Mavericks polymath — who averaged 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists last season — received 98 of 100 first-place votes.
Even more impressive: Doncic might be the best 19-year-old in NBA history.
He is at least on the short list with Dwight Howard (2004-05), Anthony Davis (2012-13), Jayson Tatum (2017-18), LeBron James (2003-04) and Kyrie Irving (2011-12). Doncic turned 20 on Feb. 28, but a player’s age is his age on Feb. 1, per Basketball-Reference.
Among 19-year-olds who played at least 1,500 minutes, Doncic is the all-time leader in Box Plus/Minus, well ahead of Irving. Using the same criteria, he is third all-time in Player Efficiency Rating, behind Davis and Irving and just head of Marvin Bagley (2018-19). He is just seventh in win shares, right behind LeBron, partly because the Mavericks were 33-49.
Those numbers project Doncic to be a multi-time All-Star with a shot at becoming a superstar in the LeBron James-Anthony Davis range.
One caveat: Doncic is not the best 19-year-old in the history of American professional basketball. That is still Moses Malone, who averaged 18.8 points and 14.6 rebounds for the Utah Stars in 1974-75. In the ABA.
Another thing: Zion Williamson will be 19 in 11 days. — Kevin Brewer
My annual player rankings — the (roughly) top 50 players in the league sorted by age — based only on last season, including the playoffs. …
