Rick Carlisle recalls seeing Luka Doncic play for the first time: "He played a pickup game like Magic Johnson"

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When Luka Doncic entered the NBA draft, he already carried a significant amount of hype due to his dominant performance as a teenager in the EuroLeague. Rick Carlisle, the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks at the time, witnessed the Slovenian star’s rise firsthand.

During his appearance on ‘The Dan Patrick Show,’ Carlisle shared how he saw Doncic dominate more experienced players on a Mavs team, showing flashes of Magic Johnson during his first pickup game.

“The first time I saw him play was in a pickup game, that fall, in 2018. He came in and we had signed DeAndre Jordan, we had Wesley Matthews, we had who else? Harrison Barnes was on the team. We had the making of a pretty good team,” Carlisle said. “He came in and played the pickup game like Magic Johnson. He passed every loving crap out of it. He was getting rebound… he was absolutely controlling the game.”

Carlisle knew Doncic would be a ‘dynamic scorer’

While acknowledging that Doncic rarely displayed his shooting abilities during that pickup game, Carlisle also confessed that in the initial days of the 2018-19 season, he and the Mavs coaching staff were challenged with integrating Doncic as the point guard alongside Dennis Smith Jr., who was also capable in that position.

However, as the regular season unfolded, Carlisle quickly recognized Doncic’s knack for scoring.

“Once we got into the season, Luka found out he could really score,” Carlisle added. “Scoring became very easy to him… he was a super dynamic scorer from Day 1.”

The evolution of Luka Legend’s game from averaging 21.2 points per game in his rookie season to leading the league with 33.2 points per game in his sixth season while also posting career-high numbers in rebounds (9.2) and assists (9.8) underscores Carlisle’s assertion that Doncic possesses a natural and effortless ability to dominate the game in various ways, perhaps even fluently than Magic.

Rick believes Doncic defied all coaching logic

While Rick had his own coaching techniques to get the best out of every player, he understood that conventional coaching theories wouldn’t apply to the five-time All-Star.

“This guy defies a lot of logic when it comes to conventional coaching theories,” Carlisle said. “And that’s why we give him the ball and let him go.”

Despite the obstacles in Rick and Luka’s relationship, there’s no doubt that the championship-winning coach did everything in his power to help Luka maximize his potential, as evidenced by his average of 25.7 points in the first three years of his NBA career.