Just like any sport, a franchise having flexibility when it comes to the salary cap is key to building a sustainable winner. Without it, teams can be stuck in the mud. One of the easiest ways to find value is by hitting on draft picks, and the NBA is a prime example of that.
Landing a player that turns into a star during their rookie deal is the easiest way for a team to create flexibility. Having an all-world player on a locked-in, scaled contract enables a front office to spend money and resources on other players to help build around that franchise cornerstone.
Several teams are benefitting from that right now. Two of them are the Dallas Mavericks and Memphis Grizzlies, who have Luka Doncic and Ja Morant leading their respective rosters while on their rookie deals.
Doncic is someone that is on the cusp of winning an MVP award, while Morant ascended toward superstardom this season. Every team in the league would love to have one of them on their roster.
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Recently, ESPN polled executives and scouts and asked them to rank six of the best young point guards in the NBA that are still on rookie deals. Doncic and Morant finished one and two by a sizable margin over Trae Young, LaMelo Ball, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Darius Garland.
Doncic was the only player to not receive a vote outside of the top two, as he had 11 votes for first and four for second place. Morant was the only other player to receive first-place votes but was voted as low as fourth.
“Luka is by himself,” a West executive said, “a generational talent, while Ja is having an unbelievable season.”
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The Hawks passed on the chance to have Doncic, trading the pick for two first-round picks that ended up being Young and Cam Reddish. Doncic and Young will forever be linked because of that deal, but at least the Hawks didn’t pass on both players to select Marvin Bagley III as the Sacramento Kings did.
The gap between Luka Doncic and Ja Morant was much closer than the one between Morant and the third-place finisher in Young. Part of that is the long-term outlook, as one scout questioned Doncic’s inability to stay in shape.
“I would probably put Luka ahead of Ja big picture, but I’ll put Ja ahead because of Luka’s conditioning [worries] every offseason,” an Eastern Conference scout said. “Luka’s more talented, but I like Ja’s approach more.”
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We have already seen how much that can impact Doncic as he came into the 2021-22 season out of shape and it cost him early on. He missed games because of injuries and when he was on the court he was not as successful as we have seen him be.
But, as the scout and executive said, Doncic is in a class all of his own when it comes to natural talent. He accomplished more on his rookie deal than most players achieve in their career and is an easy choice to finish No. 1 in this poll.
