Dallas Mavericks point guard Luka Doncic has had a very impressive start to his NBA career. Despite only being in his third season, he has already reached MVP level and has numerous highlights to credit.
Most recently, he became the first person in the last 25 seasons, other than Dan Dickau, to make multiple go-ahead 3-pointers in the final 20 seconds of a game. The Boston Celtics were the latest victim in Doncic’s last game heroics.
That play garnered the attention of former Celtic small forward, Cedric Maxwell. Maxwell played with Boston for eight seasons, the final six of which came alongside Hall of Famer, Larry Bird. As teammates, the two won two NBA Championships, with Maxwell being named MVP in the 1981 series.
Maxwell knows Bird well, so you might have to sit down for this next part. In a piece with the New York Times by Marc Stein, Maxwell compares Luka Doncic to Larry Bird, saying he is Bird reincarnated. Maxwell believes this is Bird in 2020, and that Luka plays exactly how Bird would in the current landscape of basketball.
He didn’t stop there in heaping praise on Doncic. While Maxwell and Bird weren’t teammates until Larry was 23-years old as a rookie in the NBA, Maxwell said Doncic, at 21 and turning 22 on February 28th, is better than Bird was at this age.
“Luka is better than Larry was at that age,” Maxwell said of Doncic, who turns 22 on Sunday. “The biggest thing is that there’s an arrogance, a cockiness, that Luka has that is directly out of the bloodstream of Larry Bird.”
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That is some high praise coming from someone who knows a thing or two about Larry Bird. Bird won his first of three MVP awards in his fifth season in the league when he was 27. Doncic looks poised to beat that mark, but he has a long way to go to accomplish what Bird did in his career.
Replicating what the Celtics legend was able to do from a personal standpoint was one thing. Accomplishing what he did during his career, team-wise is a different animal to tackle.
Personal accolades are always nice to have, but you know for sure Doncic would trade in his personal success if it meant more team success for the Mavericks on the court.
