He’s grown up so fast. A Player who was fun in his rookie season has, in the fourth year at least lived up to all expectations of him before he came into the NBA and, at best, has become the league’s best perimeter player. When the Mavericks struggled earlier in the year, it was Dončić who took a hard look in the mirror and decided to make some changes.
The Mavericks rode him, and eventually that trade from Porziņģis, to a stunning 52-win turnaround season. His teammates held the position long enough for him to recover from injury in their first-round series against the Utah Jazz, and he would likely take down the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell version of that team.
Then against the Suns, although it was an ebb and flow for him in terms of efficiency, he still made what his team needed in his four wins against the team with the best record in the NBA. Whether it was setting fire to his teammates from the 3-point line in Game 4 or leading the offense as the Mavericks blasted the Suns’ doors in Game 6 and then burned them in Game 7. The final game was the best as Dončić needed just 19 shots to give the Suns their worst loss of the 2021-22 season. A deficit that rose to over 40 points at times, and Dončić had the same score as the entire Suns team at halftime with 27 points.
