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Could Luka Dončić have played alongside De’Aaron Fox? (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
The Sacramento Kings were faced with a choice in the 2018 NBA Draft: select Duke big man Marvin Bagley or European guard Luka Dončić?
As most Kings fans are very aware, the team chose Bagley, then watched Dončić become one of the premier players in the NBA, with five straight All-NBA first-team nods after his rookie season. Bagley, meanwhile, has become a somewhat average center, and is no longer on the Kings.
It would appear the Kings made a franchise-altering mistake in that draft, but don’t tell that to former general manager Vlade Divac, the man responsible for the decision. He apparently thinks the jury is still out.
In an interview with Croatian outlet Index.hr, Divac was asked to explain passing over Dončić. Like he did right after the draft, Divac pointed to the presence of Kings guard De’Aaron Fox as the reason why Bagley was the better choice, and implied Fox could still vindicate the decision if he has a better career than Dončić.
From Index, interpreted through Google Translate:
“I had De’Aaron Fox at that position, whom I drafted a year earlier. At that moment, I thought that Fox was a player who could become a franchise player in the next period. Time will tell if I was wrong. As things stand now, it looks like I am, but I have faith in little Fox that he will have a better career.”
Since that draft, Dončić and the Mavericks have reached the playoffs four times, with an NBA Finals appearance last season. Fox and the Kings have reached the playoffs once, in 2023, losing in the first round to the Golden State Warriors.
Dončić certainly seems to think Divac should have taken him.
The logic that Dončić and Fox were mutually exclusive as franchise stars is also hard to swallow considering that the Mavericks reached the Finals with Dončić and point guard Kyrie Irving as their leading scorers.
Index pressed Divac on that fact and got the argument that Irving and Fox are different types of scorers, and an attempt to shift some of the questioning to the Phoenix Suns:
“Irving is a classic scorer, as is Luka. Fox…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ex-kings-gm-vlade-divac-time-will-tell-if-drafting-marvin-bagley-over-luka-doncic-was-right-decision-004308715.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-09-22 00:43:08
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