INTRO TO LUKA

Me and Luka Doncic alias Donke Jr. back in 2003



Basketball is anecdotes for me. For some it’s the wins, for some it’s the stats, for some it’s the game itself. But for me, it’s the anecdotes. Maybe it has to do something with the fact I like to laugh a lot. So this book basically starts with an anecdote.

It was back in 2003 in our hometown Ljubljana. I was a 22 year old college student at the Faculty of Economics, working part time at a tennis club named Šport Plus. Four year old kids from a nearby kindergarten came to this club’s balloons in the winter time for recreation.

I set up a playground for them with blocks made out of foam. And if I wouldn’t have done that, they would’ve just uncontrollably run around, scream and do all the nasty things kids at that age do. Like in that movie Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Everybody followed my instructions. Everybody listened. Except for one kid – Luka Doncic. When these little rascals had to go under a block, Luka went over. When they had to go over, Luka went under. When they had to go through a block, Luka just flipped it. He was all over the place!

The playground soon looked like someone threw a hand grenade on it. My mom once asked me: “How was work, sweaty?” And I was like: “They’re horrible enough, but this kid, Doncic…”

I didn’t want to yell at him like Arnold. I just let him do his thing and ‘cleaned up’ after him.

Soon you could see me on that same playground, playing with him, rolling him over or under a block etc. In fact, after a while I got so used to him, that when I saw his group coming through the door of the balloon, I said to my co-workers: “Here’s my Terminator.” This went on for about 6 months.

It’s interesting that I met his father Sasha Doncic – also a successful basketball player – only after I met Luka. It was two years later, in the 2005/2006 season, when Sasha, nicknamed Donke, was playing for Geoplin Slovan in Ljubljana. I started seeing Luka once more towards the end of 2015. During halftime at one of the home games of Geoplin Slovan Donke Jr.

picked up the basketball ball and I just couldn’t believe it. Left arm, right arm, through the legs… And he wasn’t even 7 years old, mind you. I said to myself: “Well, look at you, little Sasha… Just grow up tall as your dad and you got yourself a career there, lad.” I was right.

But I never thought he would progress so quickly.

I have to mention that four countries had a significant part in Luka’s life: Yugoslavia (birthplace of his parents), Slovenia (Luka’s birthplace), Spain (he went there when he was twelve and became a developed basketball player in the club Real Madrid) and USA (where he gained the world’s attention). So, it’s not surprising that Luka speaks four languages: Slovene, English, Spanish, and ‘former Yugoslavian’ (the latter language is basically spoken in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia).





Luka celebrating his fourth birthday with his mom Mirjam.





Tennis balloon where I watched over Luka back in 2003.



Arnold in Kindergarten Cop.





The tennis balloons are located near Ilirija’s speedway track and the latter lies in the Northern part of Ljubljana.





Flag of former Yugoslavia. Its breakup in 1991 formed 5 new countries, including Slovenia.





Flag of Slovenia, birthplace of Luka Doncic.





Flag of Spain, a country where Luka learned to speak Spanish.





Flag of USA. English became the fourth language Luka was able to speak, the third being ‘former Yugoslavian’.

THE BEGINNING





How this book got started


It was 29th December 2018. I was driving towards the city of Šenčur for the 12th round of the regular basketball season in the Slovenian Premier A League. Basketball club Šenčur GGD

was playing against Ljubljana’s Ilirija – and the latter team was being coached by none other than Luka’s father Sasha Doncic. While son Luka just scored his personal-high 34 points in NBA against New Orleans a day earlier, on the other side of Atlantic father Sasha started the season in the national championship with 11 losses. When I saw this information on RTV

teletext, I said to myself: “Jesus!” Other teams scored at least four wins.

Šenčur GGD was the second worst team on the table, so I knew Sasha had best chances for his first win of the season against this team. I said to myself: “I have to get him in a good mood. You know how it is with some coaches when they lose.” I had a good feeling Ilirija would win. But it was close – too close. And even if I always tell myself I have to be professional, I always seem to give-in to emotions and the game got to me. It got to Sasha as well. He was yelling, I tell you. So a fan from the stands shouted out: “Take it easy, Sasha.” I smiled and immediately said: “Ha, here we go!” They won (it was to be the only win in the regular part of the season!). And I was happy for Sasha (I’m always happy for the winner).

We arranged to meet and Sasha gave me some useful information. This information can not be found on the internet and this has always been my goal as a writer – to put as much unknown information to readers as possible.





INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE BASKETBALL CLUB ILIRIJA



Goran Dragic, the 2018 NBA All Star attendant, began his career there. Ilirija’s games were played in the street named Vodnikova cesta (Vodnik’s Street), before the team moved to Tivoli hall. The latter building was famous because of the 1970 World Basketball Championship and because of the most successful Slovenian club of all time – Olimpija (which had its headquarters there before the club moved to Stožice in the second decade of the 21st century). Ilirija’s biggest successes were second place in the second Yugoslav league in 1976 and first places in the republic’s league in years 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973 and in the 1981/1982 season.





Sasha's team Ilirija beating Šenčur on 29th December 2018.

Logo of team Ilirija.





On 29th December 2017, exactly a year before I went to Šenčur, Sasha’s Ilirija made a sensation when beating Olimpija, the latter club being the most successful Slovenian team of all time. Sasha is the one in the grey suit.





Luka scored 34 points against New Orleans on 28th December 2018, his highest score in NBA in 2018, while a day later his dad’s team Ilirija back in Slovenia scored its first win of the season after 11 straight losses.

MY FIRST WORDS ABOUT LUKA IN 2006

My first live basketball game not before 2005



Since I finished high school in 2000, I’ve been publishing articles in numerous newspapers and magazines. My first sport was Formula One though – I even wrote a book about the history of this sport. I loved Formula One because I could basically do all the other sports (tennis, soccer, basketball…) myself. I was the guy who, instead of buying a ticket to go watch a game, rather went to the nearest playground for recreation. My first live basketball game wasn’t seen until June 2005, when I bought two tickets for the final game of the Slovenian championship between Ljubljana’s clubs Geoplin Slovan and Union Olimpija. I bought the tickets because of two reasons. The first reason was that one of the players at Geoplin Slovan had the same last name as I did and I wanted to check him out. This player (Goran Dragic) would later on play in NBA. And the second reason was taking my dad to a game.

Between 2004 and 2007 I worked for a Slovenian daily sports newspaper Ekipa as an editor for motorsports. In October 2005 the basketball editor of this newspaper Igor Djurovic needed a correspondent at Kodeljevo for the home games of team Geoplin Slovan, so I decided to help him. I can even clearly remember one of the plays of my first game as a correspondent for this team. Goran Dragic stole the ball from the opponent and Igor – who was there to teach me how I would work later on – immediately said to me: “Watch this!” Goran dunked. A Dragic who dunks? I just lifted my eyebrows. But I have to mention, we’re not related. At least not up to the 10th generation (which is, by the way, the first generation in Serbia to be allowed to marry with a relative; this is an unwritten rule, the Church allows from the 5th and in some cases even from the 4th generation). Anyway, Goran Dragic and Sasha Doncic were teammates at Geoplin Slovan. And Sasha, together with his wife Mirjam Poterbin, regularly brought Luka to home games. If my memory serves me right, I saw Donke Jr. for the first time since 2003 at a home game against team Vojvodina from Serbia. This was in December of 2005. I remember this game because Sasha Doncic scored 28 points – a season high for Donke Sr. Luka was shooting some hoops during halftime of this game and I immediately saw great potential in the kid. I even wrote about it when I had my first ‘one to one’ interview with Sasha on 9th January 2006. During this interview I mentioned to Donke Sr. that I have noticed Luka having great basketball skills at a very young age and asked Sasha if Donke Jr.

was going to follow the footsteps of his father. Sasha replied: “He is going to have to make that decision on his own. I’m not going to force him into anything, but I will support him, if he will need my help. Yes, he’s very good for his age. He can dribble with both arms. He’s currently very busy, for besides basketball he attends soccer and judo practices as well.”

These skills of Luka even before he was 7 years old were, in my opinion, mostly self-taught.

So Kevin Durant’s statement published on 14th January 2019 wasn’t quite accurate. Kevin stated that Luka progressed with such quickness because during Luka’s time in Spain Donke Jr. didn’t have to focus on his studies. But Luka was a developed basketball player even before he turned 7. He’s elegance while handling the ball was such that I immediately knew he would make it.

My second interview with Sasha, in which Luka was mentioned once more, was in the same month, January 2006. One of the more interesting things about this interview was Sasha’s statement that he once went paragliding from Triglav (highest Slovenian mountain with a height of 2864 meters above see level). Sasha also said in this interview that he only gets jealous when it comes to his wife Mirjam and that he will try and do everything necessary to point his son Luka in the right direction.





My first published words about Luka during my first interview with his father Sasha on 9th January 2006.





My second interview with Sasha in January 2006 when he said that 28th February 1999, which is Luka’s birthday, is and will remain the date he will never forget (look at the first full question on the right picture).





Cover of the newspaper Ekipa (left picture) prior to the last (fifth and final) game of the Slovenian championship between Geoplin Slovan and Union Olimpija on 7th June 2006 (in the 2005/2006 season), a week before Sasha’s 32nd birthday. And the article or better yet preview on that game (right picture). Sasha Doncic (bottom left in the right picture) made a statement before the game, saying there are no secrets between the two teams. “The winner will become the club who will make fewer mistakes,” he added. The stands at Kodeljevo, where the game took place, were made out of benches and not seats back then, so you could really squeeze a lot of fans in there. And boy, did they squeeze for that game. If the hall could take 2200 spectators, then I think there were 2500 of them.

During halftime of that final game of the 2005/2006 season I saw little Luka playing with the ball again, having great skills once more. After the game, which Slovan lost, Sasha picked up Luka and embraced him. It must have been tough for Donke Sr., for this was his fourth loss in the finals of the Slovenian championship.





On 23rd June 2006, 13 days after the finals, Slovenian newspaper Žurnal reported how Sasha Doncic celebrated his 32nd birthday together with his friends at a picnic. Amongst friends were players whom he played against in the finals just a couple of days earlier. Young Luka can be seen far right covering the face of Goran Dragic.





In 2006 the well known restaurant in Ljubljana called Flamenco got a new owner. It was to be none other than Luka’s father Sasha Doncic. Lots of famous Slovenian people came to Sasha’s opening ceremony of that restaurant, including Miss Slovenia Rebeka Dremelj and soccer coach Srecko Katanec, the first who managed to get a tiny little Luka’s home country called Slovenia to the European Championship (it was back in 2000).





In March 2007, 15 months after my first interview with Sasha Doncic, I had my third conversation with Luka’s father, this time for newspaper Dnevnik. Once again, Sasha talked about Luka. When asked why he mostly played for the Slovenian clubs, Sasha answered: “I like Slovenia, I miss nothing here. I live a fine life, I have a son who is 8 years old now and it means a lot to me having him around, together with my wife Mirjam and friends. I have a way of life that suits me. You can’t buy happiness with money.” This interview was originally very long and had to be shortened. Sasha was always good at interviews and thus made life easier for journalists.





On 10th February 2009 I had my fourth interview with Sasha Doncic. Luka, who was now 10 years old, was mentioned once more. Sasha was now playing for Geoplin Slovan once again, after negotiations with Union Olimpija, where he played in the 2007/2008 season, failed to bear fruit. When I asked Sasha where he saw him self in the future, he replied: “I will try to play basketball for a little while longer. After I finish my career I see myself as a coach. I have two more exams before I get my license to coach a team. I gave my youth to basketball and because my son also loves this sport, I would like to be close to him. I want to help him, so that he doesn’t make the same mistakes as I did. The plan is to stay in basketball, but I can’t predict what will happen to me.”





Left picture: my report of the game between Geoplin Slovan and Vojvodina in December 2005 when I basically started seeing Donke Jr. regularly again and noticed he had great basketball skills. I remember this game because of Donke Sr. as well. He scored 28 points which was his best result of the season. On the right picture: Sasha’s words from January 2006 when he said that if it wasn’t for his wife Mirjam, life in the early ‘90s would have been a lot more difficult for him. But you can read more about this on the page ‘Blood is thicker than water’.

A WORD OR TWO ABOUT IGOR DJUROVIC

Igor wrote Doncic’s biography, Luka was unhappy



Igor Djurovic is probably the best basketball journalist in Slovenia or even the best in the region of former Yugoslavia. In early years of his life he even played some basketball himself. He played for team Olimpija against Drazen Petrovic in that memorable game when Drazen scored a record high 112 points for his club Cibona. Also, there isn’t a journalist in Slovenia that can tell you so many anecdotes as Igor can. For example, when Dream Team played at the 1992 Summer Olympics, Igor went to Barcelona without having accreditation or tickets for the games. I asked him: “So what did you during those long days there?” He answered: “I went to see things which were for free… Like… equestrian events.” I was probably the first to write about Luka Doncic in newspapers back in 2006, but Igor Djurovic was the first to write a book about him. In December 2018 I read that he and Serbian journalist Vlada Stankovic wrote approximately 200 pages about this young talented player.

Luka Doncic immediately gave a statement about this book. He said: “A few days ago some news came up to me that they are trying to release my biography on the day of my 20th birthday, that’s 28th February 2019. I didn't cooperate in the making of it with Vladimir Stankovic and Igor Djurovic, as a matter of fact I actively opposed to creating the work because, in my opinion, I am way too young for such publication. Mr. Stankovic came in contact with us some while ago while I was still playing in Real Madrid. He expressed his request for me to participate in creation of it but I respectfully declined. Even so, it seems that the issuance is in fact ready to be published and I am strictly opposed to advertising and releasing it in my name.” Igor went to the States to see Luka in January of 2019 for authorization of the book and later said it would be published with or without Luka’s approval. Luka was even more against publication of this book when he read it. This was Luka’s statement made in February 2019: “Now that I have read it, I’m even more against its publication. It’s nothing but former articles about me and stats and some things written about me aren’t true. I appreciate the effort the two writers made, but my opinion about it is the same. I am against it.” I found out about the biography a couple of days after I decided it would be a good thing to give the American and world’s readers something more about Luka Doncic. This Igor’s project made the whole thing a bit complicated, but not too difficult. Later on I read that the release of the book was to be withheld.

An interesting thing about Igor is that he had an acrobatic group called Hip Hoopers with a famous mascot – a rabbit. Once in a while I wore that mascot’s suit at various shows (All Star games, street basketball, etc.).

It’s funny how the basketball world is connected. Igor played against Drazen Petrovic, Drazen played against Michael Jordan, and at one time I played with Igor against some Slovenian veteran players… Then Michael Jordan played against Kobe Bryant, Kobe Bryant played against LeBron James, LeBron James played against Luka Doncic, Luka Doncic played against my friend Matjaž Trobec when Donke Jr. was a youngster, and Matjaž Trobec played against me.





Igor during a home game and the box-score where you can see the record 112 points of Petrovic. Igor? 8 points.





Petrovic and Jordan playing for their national teams (left picture) and Drazen in NBA (right picture).





Igor’s acrobatic group Hip Hoopers (the guy in the rabbit costume is me, funny enough).

LUKA’S HOME CITY LJUBLJANA

Donke Jr. lived in Topniska Street



To know Luka you must first know which town he came from. And I’m not going to give you a classic tour of the city. No, I’m going to write about all the things you don’t know, all the things you can’t find on internet, and about all of those little details which a tourist agency will not mention.

Ljubljana is one of the smallest capital cities in the world, with a population of less than 300

thousand. The city is shaped like a star if you look at it from above. You know, like the star you once found on the flag of former Yugoslavia. Or better yet like stars on the US flag.

Anyway, five main roads in the directions of the star’s edges go in and out of the city and we also have one highway that circles around the city.

This highway around the city is around 30 kilometers long and the main roads cross the highway at 5 different locations. From these locations to the center of the city you have to drive around 5 kilometers, so it’s really impossible to get lost and you can even walk the distances. These five main roads from the city center are: Smartinska cesta (takes you kind of up to the right in the direction of Hungary), Dunajska cesta (takes you up towards Austria), Celovska cesta (takes you kind of up to the left towards Austria and Italy, but it’s better if I write towards Germany’s Munich), Trzaska cesta (takes you kind of down to the left towards Croatia and the Slovenian coastline) and Dolenjska cesta (takes you towards Zagreb in Croatia). You’ll get the idea.

Luka lived with his family in Topniška ulica or Topniska Street and this is kind of up and to the right from the city center – about 1 or 2 kilometers away from it.

Luka attended grammar school of Miran Jarc (Osnovna šola Mirana Jarca) in Ipavčeva ulica or Ipavceva Street (not far from Topniska Street).

When in Ljubljana, you urgently have to hook up with a local guy if you’re in town and since I’m from Ljubljana as well, consider me as your tour guide. The view from the Ljubljana Castle is spectacular and a first. Don’t waste time with photographing monuments, bridges and fountains. No. Eat at the best restaurants such as Romeo, Julia, Kaval, buy some bear and go bake in the sun on ‘the beaches’ of the river Ljubljanica which runs through the city center.





Emblem of Ljubljana (left picture), restaurant Julia (middle picture) and pancakes from Romeo (right picture).





Ljubljanski grad or The Castle of Ljubljana has a magnificent view and is a must when you come to Ljubljana.





The beautiful ‘beaches’ (left picture) of the river Ljubljanica (right picture) where you can ‘bake’ in the sun.

LUKA’S HOME COUNTRY SLOVENIA

Luka eventually decided to play for Slovenia



Once again I will give you information you can not find on internet. Example: Slovenia’s capital city is only 135 kilometers away from another big metropolitan area (Zagreb, Croatia); Ljubljana also lies around 500 kilometers from major cities such as Belgrade (Serbia), Budapest (Hungary), Vienna (Austria) and Milano (Italy); from Slovenia’s center of the country you only have a little over 100 kilometers to the coastline during summer and far less than 100 kilometers to the nearest ski resort in the winter time.

We have beautiful caves such as Škocjanske jame and the more ‘popular’ caves in Postojna, a town only 50 kilometers from the capital city. And if you want to see half of Slovenia right in front of you, you just drive from Ljubljana towards Rašica. This hill is only 5 kilometers outside the town and maps.google even has a 360 degree view from its tower (just write

‘Razgledni stolp na Rašici’ into maps.google.com). People mostly do know how to speak English and you would really have to be unlucky to get a youngster who doesn’t understand or speak this language.

Slovenians are a very friendly nation for foreigners or should I say tourists, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to communicate. Living here? Well, that’s a different story – if you allow me to be a bit humorous.

Luka was linked to play for other national teams, including Serbia and Spain, but on 22nd September 2016 he announced he would play for the Slovenian national team for the rest of his career.

Places to see in Slovenia are: Bled with its delicious desert called Kremšnita, Piran at the seaside, town Ljubljana and several other places.

In summer you can easily climb Triglav, the highest mountain in the region of former Yugoslavia.





Slovenian flag is similar to Slovakian (the emblem of the latter is different).





City of Piran at the coast and lake Bled with an island inside of the lake itself (right picture).





Waterfall Peričnik freezes during the winter time (left picture) and the caves of Škocjanske jame (right picture)

BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER

Father Sasha and mother Mirjam active in sports



Luka was very lucky of having both parents active in sports. Sasha Doncic was a successful basketball player and Mirjam Poterbin was a hurdler back in the days. Having a father taking him to games and a mother that took him outside for walks and near a basketball court regularly, Luka quickly learned what the world of sport meant. Sasha, in his own words, comes from a family with tall relatives, so predisposition was a key factor even in his career, let alone in Luka’s. Donke Sr. was born in Šempeter pri Gorici in former Yugoslavia and started playing basketball in his school in Jesenice. His path then took him to Olimpija in Ljubljana. He didn’t play for their senior team, because he was a minor, but he did train with it. He then went to Belgrade to play for Crvena Zvezda or Red Star coached by the legendary Duško Vujošević. The latter trained this team in years 1991 and 1992, which were turbulent because of the outburst of wars between several former Yugoslav republics. Had it not been for these wars, Sasha’s career might have had a different, perhaps far better path. There’s nothing worse then for a young player not being able to train hard due to extreme circumstances. Sasha had to work to survive and his jobs were diverse. He even painted fences. Sasha later admitted: “It was very hard for me when I came back to Slovenia from Belgrade in 1991. Basically I came just for a visit, but circumstances were such that I had to stay. If it wasn’t for Mirjam and some other friends, it would have been even harder.” Sasha’s memories of this period are faint, though. As I have investigated, he played only one game for Red Star, and even this wasn’t in the 1991/1992 season, but a season later when the coach was Vladislav Lučić. This is according to the Red Star’s official website. “I can’t really remember in detail that turbulent period in my life and Yugoslavia in general. I’m sure I played more games, these might have been in the Cup,” said Sasha.

Information about Sasha’s early life can’t be found in the world’s best encyclopedia Wikipedia. Also, what you can not find, is what kind of a player was Sasha. In my mind, he was the best – despite others having better skills then him. During games he was hugging with referees. He lifted arms of his teammates when they made a foul, as if ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t make one’. He never used bad language. And so on. He constantly reminded viewers that basketball is first a game, only then a business. My memories of him during work on the court itself are also very good. He could force an opponent to make a foul, when others couldn’t. And he played good defense, never intentionally hurting a player from the other side. I can’t remember him ever getting a technical or unsporting foul. His son got two in a single game in his first NBA season with Dallas and was ejected because of that during the game against Indiana in January 2019. Sasha was the kind of player who always said: “It’s better to play in front of fans whistling to you, then in an empty hall.”

I think Sasha must have been the best player to play inside of Slovenia, the first one that a coach of a competitive Slovenian club would take into consideration when forming a team.

He was also good-hearted. In June 2007 I organized a charity tournament and Sasha attended it along with many other excellent players. He once stated that basketball lost its beauty when it became more physical, but when his son became a developed player at Real Madrid, he said: “Luka brought back the romance to this sport.” I also think that there isn’t a Slovenian player who played in more finals of the Slovenian national championship than he did. He won two out of six, the first one in 2007 when he was 33 years old!

After the end of his career as a player he started coaching. He made a real story at Ilirija, bringing the club first from the third league into second, and then from the second league into first, having 49 straight wins in the process! He didn’t stop there – when he once reached the first league, he beat much stronger teams than his own, even Olimpija. He made the strongest

impression on me in the early months of 2019, when his team played against Šentjur. They were 2 points down with 16 seconds to go. I presumed that they would start making fouls and try with quick counter attacks. But no, they decided to guard their opponents on their side of the court and it worked. Šentjur lost the ball, but one of the Ilirija players made a bad pass and the ball was lost again. I would’ve chosen the tactic with fouls, but Sasha’s decision was, in my humble opinion, much better – mostly because those 16 second could’ve turned into 10

more minutes of countless interruptions of the game. I guess Sasha and his assistant Luka Bassin knew I hate a free throw ending of a game (if you allow me to be a bit humorous).





Sasha playing for Pivovarna Laško against Partizan back in the ‘90s (left picture) and at Slovan (right picture).





First and only titles for Sasha came in seasons 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 with clubs Helios and Union Olimpija.





Mirjam in 2011.



My charity event (Sasha is with Zoran, brother of Goran Dragic).

EARLY LIFE OF LUKA

Soccer, judo and school runs



Luka Doncic was born in Ljubljana on 28th February 1999 to before mentioned Sasha Doncic and Mirjam Poterbin. He was born not that long after Sasha sustained an injury on his face and had to wear a mask during games. Years later, Sasha, in an emotional letter to his son, explained how he was encouraging his wife Mirjam to give birth on 28th and not 29th February. Donke Sr. explained: “I didn’t want him to celebrate his birthday every 4 years.”

Luka didn’t seem to stand out in early years amongst his peers, at least not with height. When I watched over him for 6 months during my work at Šport Plus, he didn’t seem to be any bigger or higher compared to other kids. At least this is how I remembered him. But boy, did he have a lot of energy.

Two years later, during my season as a correspondent for the home games of Geoplin Slovan, he still didn’t seem higher or bigger compared to youngsters his age. During these home games of Geoplin Slovan, where he watched his dad having his best season up to then, he was in charge of sweeping the court with a mop when asked by the referee. During halftimes he quickly put the mop aside and grabbed a ball. So did other kids who were there as helpers or spectators (usually as sons and daughters of players). I could see him and other rascals sweating with effort to score a basket.

Luka also trained soccer and judo during that time. His father said to me that he even got a bronze medal in judo and was good in running too – when schools organized the so called

‘cross’ runs. But his mother denied this. Considering the fact this sort of information isn’t that relevant in a life of a future basketball player, it’s not that important to write about soccer and judo, rather than explain to readers that Luka obviously had very good physical predispositions for sports. According to Luka Bassin, Sasha’s assistant at Ilirija in January 2019, Donke Sr. took ‘little Donke’ to watch Sasha’s practices as early as 2001 when Luka’s dad was playing for Loka Kava.





Luka right after his birth in 1999 (left picture) and with father Sasha when the latter played for Krka in 2001.





At Kodeljevo (club Slovan) on the court and on the grandstands together with his father Sasha. You can clearly see benches instead of seats, so you can imagine how it was in the finals of 2005/2006 when the hall was full.

THE STORY WITH CLUBS BEGINS

Playing for Ljubljana’s Olimpija from 2007 to 2012



With the development of social media and possibility to translate things with google translate, you can find basically everything you need to know about Luka Doncic yourself. Wikipedia has such thorough description of him that I will deliberately distance myself from things you already know and can read about on the internet. In the 2007/2008 season father Sasha Doncic played for team Olimpija. Olimpija was called Union Olimpija back then, due to the sponsorship of Union – a company which manufactures mostly beer. Olimpija is now called Petrol Olimpija after a company which mostly sells gas. Anyway, Wikipedia reports that Luka started playing for Olimpija when he was 8 years old, which means in October of 2007, and that Olimpija’s basketball school coach Grega Brezovec invited Luka to practice with players of his age. I met Grega Brezovec as early as 2004. He was the guy mostly known for ŠKL or Šolska Košarkarska Liga (in translation: Basketball School League), a competition between Slovenian schools. What is mostly important to write about this period of Luka’s life is that he started growing faster than most of his pears. This is why (and Wikipedia writes about this!) they constantly moved him up to train with older kids. But having height alone doesn’t cut it because of the lack of muscle tissue, at least this is what experts of that time were saying back then, so Luka, in his owns words, had to work harder at everything.

You can find lots of photos of Luka from this period on the internet links at the end of this book and see the progress in the making for yourself. His mother Mirjam Poterbin also posted lots of photos of her son from that time on her Facebook profile. Mind you, clubs in Slovenia usually have practices at schools until these kids reach a certain age, only then do they start with training sessions in the halls of those clubs.

Looking at the first table below, you’ll probably ask yourselves why you can’t see larger cities. Maribor and Celje are renowned for soccer and handball, while clubs Krka and Helios basically made it because of major companies in that area (Krka is a pharmaceutical company, Helios develops mostly paint). Tajfun in probably going to remain the so called ‘one-off’.





NUMBER OF TITLES IN THE SLOVENIAN PREMIER LEAGUE (up to season end 2020) 17

Olimpija (Ljubljana, largest city in Slovenia)

7

Krka (Novo mesto, 8th largest city in Slovenia)

2

Helios (Domžale, 15th largest city in Slovenia)

1

Tajfun (Šentjur, 42nd largest city in Slovenia)



Sixt Primorska (Koper, 5th largest city in Slovenia)



NUMBER OF TITLES IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAV PREMIER LEAGUE (up to season end 1991) 12

Crvena Zvezda (Belgrade, Serbia)

6

Olimpija (Ljubljana, Slovenia)



Zadar (Zadar, Croatia)



Split (Split, Croatia)

4

Partizan (Belgrade, Serbia)



OKK Beograd (Belgrade, Serbia)

3

Bosna (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina)



Cibona (Zagreb, Croatia)

1

Yugoslav Army (Belgrade, Serbia)



Proleter Zrenjanin (Zrenjanin, Serbia)



Radnički Belgrade (Belgrade, Serbia)





Olimpija’s team logo (left) and Luka with his dad in June of 2007 when Sasha won the title with this team.





Logo of ŠKL (left picture) and Goran Dragic with Grega Brezovec on the right (Luka is the highest of the kids).





According to the Spanish Wikipedia Luka Doncic officially became a member of the club Olimpija in 2010.

MOVE TO THE SPANISH REAL MADRID IN 2012

The only club to play for professionally before NBA



Like before when I was writing about Luka at Olimpija I will once again skip a long description and statistics of Luka Doncic when the latter moved to Real Madrid. I will rather translate words of his mother speaking about that time and also of Sasha when the latter wrote to his son in July of 2018. Luka went to Spain at the age of 13. Mother Mirjam stated: “I can not describe you my feelings when your kid goes from home at that age. I was in Madrid every week, but still. On the other hand, it was this period of his life that made him mature much sooner than expected.” Father Sasha’s words in the before mentioned letter about this period of Luka’s life were: “Dear Luka, can you imagine having a son of your own and living without him? Can you imagine how he builds his life so far away from you? You were 13

years old, Real Madrid came here to Slovenia to put you into their team and take you so far away from us. It hurt. It hurt a lot… At the same time I was excited, for I would never forgive myself of not letting you go. I didn’t want to be the one to blame of missing such a great opportunity.” Before Luka went to Madrid, he swept the floor at Olimpija’s home games in Stožice hall and on 8th February 2019 Facebook’s site NBA Slovenija posted a video of him from that time. The source of this video was POP TV and the reporter mentioned how Luka had a height of 170 centimeters at the age of 12. This was in the 2011/2012 season, Olimpija’s season before last in EuroLeague, and the video showed him sitting next to the court and watching his idol Ricky Rubio play for team Barcelona. Both of them would play against each other in Luka’s first NBA season! Luka achieved one more notable record before going to Madrid. At the Lido di Roma Tournament he erupted with a monster’s triple double of 54

points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. I posted the link of this video of him watching Ricky Rubio at the end of this book; together with the video of the 2013 Minicopa tournament where he already played for Real. You can basically see all videos of Luka on youtube.com, like his professional debut (for Real Madrid) in 2015. You just have to type-in the right words.





NUMBER OF TITLES IN EUROLEAGUE (up to season end 2020)



10

Real Madrid (Madrid, Spain)

8

CSKA Moscow (Moscow, Russia)

6

Maccabi Tel Aviv (Tel Aviv, Israel)



Panathinaikos (Athens, Greece)

5

Varese (Varese, Italy)

3

Olympiacos (Piraeus, Greece)



Olimpia Milano (Milan, Italy)



Rigas ASK (Riga, Latvia)



Split (Split, Croatia)

2

FC Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)



Virtus Bologna (Bologna, Italy)



Cantù (Cantù, Italy)



Cibona (Zagreb, Croatia)

1

Fenerbahçe (Istanbul, Turkey)



Dinamo Tbilisi (Tbilisi, Georgia)



Joventut Badalona (Badalona, Spain)



Žalgiris (Kaunas, Lithuania)



Bosna (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina)



Virtus Roma (Rome, Italy)



Partizan (Belgrade, Serbia)



Limoges CSP (Limoges, France)





Logo of Real Madrid (left) and Luka with his mom back in 2012 and 2013 (right picture: at Santiago Bernabeu).





Luka giving an interview after a youth game in May 2014 and again with mom in 2015.





Father Sasha showing his son a move or two. Or was it the other way around?

SEASON END 2015 WITH REAL MADRID

At first, he only played in the Spanish ACB league



The 2014/2015 season was the first for Luka in the senior team of Real Madrid. His first game was towards the end of the season, in April, which is logical for young players to have their debuts, but not a rule of course. At the age of only 16 years and 2 months he became the youngest player of Real Madrid to play in the Spanish ACB league. Sasha Doncic remembered Luka from these early years playing for Real Madrid and said: “It was a tournament of cadets in Barcelona when he still didn’t know how to speak Spanish that well.

He played against bigger rivals, but they chose him as the MVP of the tournament. In a few months time coach Pablo Laso put him into the senior team for the first time. And that first attack against one of the Spanish teams… he was in the corner… three points shot made!

These great moments a father never forgets.”

This three-point shot made was special because of something else too. It was the first time Luka ever touched a ball in his professional career. First touch and already a three-point shot made. It doesn’t happen that often… You can see all of this on youtube.com if you type in

‘Luka Doncic debut Real Madrid’ into the search box.

In this debut season for young Doncic his club Real Madrid won everything that could be won: the EuroLeague, the Spanish Liga ACB league, the Spanish cup Copa Del Rey and the Spanish SuperCup named Supercopa de España de Baloncesto. Having teammates like Felipe Reyes (ACB MVP), Sergio Llull (ACB finals MVP) and Andrés Nocioni (EuroLeague Final Four MVP) gave Luka not only all possible titles in his first season as a professional basketball player, but the chance to learn from the best and eventually surpass them. In this season Luka also attended Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament and won the MVP award there. This is an ‘under-18’ tournament, held every year at different locations (the link to it is at the end of this book).





YOUNGEST ACB PLAYERS (up to season end 2019)



1st

Ricky Rubio (Spain, born 1990)

2nd

Ángel Rebolo (Spain, born 1975)

3rd

Luka Doncic (Slovenia, born 1999)





Coach Pablo Laso gave young Luka the first opportunity to prove himself only at the end of 2014/2015 season.





With teammate Andres Nocioni (right) celebrating the win of EuroLeague, the second strongest competition in the world after NBA.





Luka at the Next Generation Tournament.

SEASON END 2016 WITH REAL MADRID

The season of EuroLeague debut for Donke Jr.



This is the season where Luka became a regular member of Real Madrid’s senior team. His average time on court in the Spanish ACB league increased from 5 to 13 minutes per game.

He also debuted in EuroLeague with an average time of 11 minutes per game.

One of the things he did this season was that he changed the number of his jersey from 17 to 7. Number 7 would stay with him throughout his career at Real Madrid, while in his first season of NBA he just added one more 7 to have 77 on his jersey (which is basically the number with which he played at the EuroBasket 2017). His father Sasha also wasn’t too attached to a number at first, but as he got older, Donke Sr. always wore a jersey with the number 4. In Sasha’s own words during that interview I made with him in 2007 (in which he also explained he wasn’t the superstitious type of a player but always liked to have his facial hair shaved before a game) the number 4 didn’t have a special meaning for him. Or a reason (other than he always played in that position – that’s 4 for ‘power forward’). But with years it kind of got stuck with him.

This second season for Luka in the Spanish club wasn’t as successful as the first one, for Real Madrid failed to win the Supercopa (they lost in semifinals) and the Euroleague (they dropped out in quarterfinals). In Supercopa Real Madrid lost against Unicaja with a margin of 25

points. And in EuroLeague they lost all three games in the quarterfinals against Fenerbahçe who would go on to the finals.

In EuroLeague Luka became the 12th youngest player since the 2000/2001 season to debut in this competition. He was 16 years and 229 days old when that happened. Ricky Rubio for instance was 5th youngest with 16 years and 3 days of age.





YOUNGEST EUROLEAGUE PLAYERS (since 2000 and up to season end 2019) 1st

Aleksandar Ugrinoski (Macedonia, born 1988)

Age: 15 years and 266 days

2nd

Can Mutaf (Turkey, born 1991)





Age: 15 years and 318 days

12th

Luka Doncic (Slovenia, born 1999)



Age: 16 years and 229 days)





Together with his teammates (Luka is the one with the number 7 on his jersey).





Dunking during an important game against Tenerife.





Luka with Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the most loved and hated soccer players (left picture). And shaking hands with teammate Sergio Rodriguez on the right picture.

SEASON END 2017 WITH REAL MADRID

Season of establishment and rise to fame and fortune



The basketball world, like Formula One racing for instance, is full of these stories. Example: a police officer stopped a Formula 1 driver and didn’t recognize him. “You drive like Juan Manuel Fangio,” said the policeman. And the driver replied: “Sir, I am Juan Manuel Fangio!”

It’s the same in basketball. Matjaž Trobec, a friend of mine, during this 2017/2018 season told me a story of how he once played against Luka Doncic. “He was like 12 or something back then and I was 4 years older. I beat him. Not with ease, but I beat him… Today I wouldn’t score a single basket,” said Matjaž. I had a similar story in the 2013/2014 season. I beat the whole Geoplin Slovan team in the half-court shots (for drinks, mind you!), but in a ‘one on one’ match I wouldn’t score a single basket against any of their players. Matjaž was in Slovenia’s reality TV show called Kmetija (The Farm) which he almost won. Funny!

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Luka really ‘grew up’ in this season. He was now playing 20 minutes per game (compared to 13 in the previous season) in both ACB league and EuroLeague. Yet, the season proved to be slightly worse again, for in the ACB league, despite being first in the regular part of the season, Real Madrid lost in the finals with a result 1:3

against Valencia, the latter club being third after the regular part of the season. In EuroLeague competition Real Madrid reached the Final Four, but lost against Fenerbahçe in semifinals and then lost again in the game for third place against CSKA Moscow. This was the season where the format of 4 groups didn’t exist anymore. EuroLeague had a single group with 16

teams playing in a round-robin format. Real was at the top with 23 victories and 7 loses, so it was a bit unlucky for Luka and his team to finish fourth. Luka won the Best Young Player Award and was put in the Best All-Young Team. In EuroLeague he was proclaimed as the Rising Star of the competition. But what probably made Luka happiest is the fact that in this season Donke Jr. finally surpassed his idol Vassilis Spanoulis in PIR.





COMPARISON WITH HIS IDOL VASSILIS SPANOULIS



POINTS

PIR

VASSILIS SPANOULIS

12.6



11.9

LUKA DONCIC



7.8



13.3





In a preseason game (and win) against Oklahoma City Thunder (left picture) in October 2016. ‘Westbrook who?’

was one of the comments about this picture on Facebook. The right picture is Luka in January 2017.





Not only thinking about the ball (June ’17).

Doncicmania starts.

EUROBASKET 2017 – SLOVENIA ON TOP

Luka’s first EuroBasket, Slovenia’s first medal



Fourteen years passed since a team won the EuroBasket competition without a single loss. It was back in 2003 when Lithuania stepped on the thrown, but the latter team played in a format where you only needed 6 games to become the champion. Slovenia played in a format with 9 games and won all 9 of them! The final game smashed all records in TV ratings in Slovenia. At one time the game was watched by 96 percent of all TV viewers.

Slovenians were desperate to win a medal at a major competition for years. At one point they were literally demanding a medal, mostly because of the fact so many Slovenian players played in NBA (Radoslav Nesterović, Beno Udrih, Primož Brezec, Boštjan Nachbar, Saša Vujačić…) and other major leagues across Europe (with EuroLeague being the first of them; followed by the Spanish league, Turkish league, Russian league, Adriatic league etc.). Prior to the championship nobody, at least not amongst ordinary people, expected anything from the Slovenian national team. With names like Čančar, Zagorac, the inexperienced Doncic, and on top of that a naturalized Randolph, everybody more or less laughed. But experts knew that Slovenians would be tough opponent for everybody.

Luka was the fourth best rebounder of the tournament with 8.1 rebounds per game, but what I have to point out here is the following: the ones that were better rebounders, and these were Jonas Valančiūnas (12.0), Gabriel Olaseni (11.2) and Zaza Pachulia (9.2) were players which were at least 10 centimeters taller than Luka. Which means that for a guard Luka gets a lot of rebounds. This immediately reminded me of Goran Dragic who also gets a lot of rebounds for a guard. Both of them were best rebounders of the Slovenian team in the finals against Serbia, with 7 rebounds each. They had two and three more than their main centers Gašper Vidmar and Anthony Randolph.

Luka was put in the All Tournament Team, next to Goran Dragic (who was MVP), Pau Gasol, Bogdan Bogdanović and Alexey Shved.

Slovenia wasn’t lucky, as one would or might think. It beat countries like France and Greece (in the group) and later on Spain and Serbia. It was a fairytale.

The most interesting story for me though (besides little Doncic) at that championship was that of Luka’s teammate Saša Zagorac. I had an interview with him in the 2005/2006 season, when he came from Barcelona disappointed not to get into the first team. He was down and I tried to persuade him to play for Geoplin Slovan where he would play alongside Donke Sr. and Goran Dragic. Slovan played in the strong Adriatic League (basically former Yugoslavian 1st League) along with teams like Partizan, Crvena Zveda, Budućnost, Cibona and Union Olimpija. But Zagorac chose Postojna, a club that did play in the 1st Slovenian League, but was more or less fighting to stay in it. Eleven years later, at the age of 33, Saša got the gold medal at the 2017 EuroBasket. Who would’ve thought.





Luka first wore the 77 number for his national team. It would later become his trademark number in NBA.





Luka’s teammate in the national team was Goran Dragic who played with Luka’s dad for three seasons – first at Slovan for two seasons (from 2004 to 2006) and then at Olimpija in the 2007/2008 season (right picture).





Who would’ve thought a tiny little country named Slovenia would win the EuroBasket 2017 competition.

SEASON END 2018 WITH REAL MADRID

MVP season and looking towards playing in NBA



The first thing I noticed when I started writing this book in January 2019 (when Luka already played in NBA) was the fact that every year, despite getting better and better each year, his percentage of free throws made got worse each season. In the 3 seasons of EuroLeague competition and first half of the first NBA season it dropped from 88 percent to 73 percent.

This could be an anomaly, of course, but what is interesting to me is, that in the Spanish ACB

league that percentage never reached more than 80 percent. Anyway, the 2017/2018 season was the season in which words like ‘youngest’ – ‘record’ – ‘MVP’ were most common when someone wrote or reported about Luka Doncic.

Real Madrid won the two most important competitions of that season, the EuroLeague and the Spanish ACB league. The EuroLeague was especially interesting, because a year before Luka didn’t score a single point against Fenerbahçe in the semifinals which Real Madrid lost. In 17

minutes and 19 seconds of play he only managed 2 rebounds and 3 assists. But this time against the same team (and this time in the finals!) in 28 minutes and 41 seconds of play he managed 15 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists to bring Real Madrid’s its 10th EuroLeague title, making it the most successful team in this competition.

Luka was the MVP of EuroLeague, the MVP of the Final Four tournament and he was also put into the All-EuroLeague Team. Talk about getting everything at once.

The coach of Fenerbahçe Željko Obradović, who managed to get his team on the Final Four tournament every year in the past 4 seasons and is the most successful coach with 9 titles in EuroLeague (the second best coach only had 4 titles while these words were written down in February 2019), said: “I think Luka will achieve a lot in NBA.”





COMPARISON WITH HIS IDOL VASSILIS SPANOULIS



POINTS

PIR

VASSILIS SPANOULIS

14.0



11.9

LUKA DONCIC



16.0



21.5





Christmas dinner with friends and family and Luka with trophies of the EuroLeague competition (right picture).





Luka and his teammates enjoying after winning the 2018 Final Four tournament and thus EuroLeague.





Proud mom always there by her son’s side.

NBA DRAFT IN JUNE OF 2018

Luka was the third pick in the first round



Right after the end of 2017/2018 season with Real Madrid in May 2018 Luka Doncic went to the 2018 NBA draft which was held in June. He got selected by Atlanta Hawks as the third pick of the first round and was later traded to Dallas Mavericks.

The last time a European basketball player got picked as third in the first round was back in 2011 when Enes Kanter from Turkey got selected by Utah Jazz. Before that the Italian Andrea Bargnani was selected as the first pick back in 2006 and the Brit Ben Gordon as the third pick in 2004. Darko Miličić from Serbia and Montenegro was selected as the second in 2003. Like Luka, Pau Gasol from Spain also got selected as the third (this was in 2001), also by Atlanta Hawks and was also traded (to Vancouver).

Luka’s father Sasha didn’t go the draft and later publicly explained to Luka why. “What does it mean to be a good father? Now I know the answer to that question. I was never perfect. You know I was in Ljubljana on the night of the draft and not by your side, Luka. We both know why, but let this be our little secret, a secret which connects us. I impatiently waited to hear your name. And when I did, oh, my God… You can not understand how I felt at that moment.

As a father I was very proud. Son, you made me proud again once more,” said Sasha.

At this point, I have to mention that there were numerous Slovenian players which weren’t drafted at the NBA drafts. Marko Tušek, Jaka Lakovič, Matjaž Smodiš, Mirza Begić, Zoran Dragic and many more fell into the category ‘undrafted’ and were forced to play elsewhere.

Also, some were drafted, but never played in NBA.





CHRONOLOGY OF SLOVENIAN PLAYERS AT THE NBA DRAFTS (up to season end 2019) 1997

Marko Milić (2nd round, 33rd pick)

1998

Radoslav Nesterović (1st round, 17th pick)

2000

Primož Brezec (1st round, 27th pick)

2002

Boštjan Nachbar (1st round, 15th pick)

2003

*Sani Bečirović (2nd round, 46th pick)

2004

Saša Vujašić (1st round, 27th pick)



Beno Udrih (1st round, 28th pick)

2005

*Erazem Lorbek (2nd round, 46th pick)



Uroš Slokar (2nd round, 5th pick)

2008

Goran Dragic (2nd round, 45th pick)

2009

*Emir Preldžić (2nd round, 57th pick)

2017

*Vlatko Čančar (2nd round, 49th pick)

2018

Luka Doncic (1st round, 3rd pick)



*never played in NBA





Draft’s logo and Luka Doncic together with his mother Mirjam Poterbin at the ceremony (right picture).





Deandre Ayton from Bahamas (left picture) and Marvin Bagley III from USA got picked as first and second.

SHORT HISTORY OF SLOVENIANS IN NBA

The first to play in USA was Milić, Doncic tenth



Marko Milić, Radoslav Nesterović, Beno Udrih, Primož Brezec, Saša Vujačić, Boštjan Nachbar, Uroš Slokar, Goran Dragic, Zoran Dragić and Luka Doncic. This is the list of Slovenian players in a chronological order to play in the NBA.

The first one to go across the Atlantic was Marko Milić. Milić was already a major star in Slovenia and Europe when his path took him to the States. He was best known in the minds and hearts of Slovenians for that famous dunk over a car at the 1995 Slovenian All Star. His NBA career was short lived, though, and he never really showed his real talent.

Radoslav Nesterović was next and he is, together with Beno Udrih and Saša Vujačić, one of three Slovenians up to 2019 to win the NBA title.

An honorable mention of the whole NBA story is Boris Gorenc. In 1997 he was invited to train with Chicago Bulls for two months and already signed with them, before he injured his knees. An anecdote still circles around, of how Boris once played against Michael Jordan one on one. They played to 11. Boris led 10:0 when Jordan won 11:10.

An interesting story is Zoran Dragić. He was undrafted at the 2011 NBA draft, but then played a few games for Phoenix Suns and Miami Heat with his brother in the 2014/2015

season.





MOST SUCCESFUL ACHIEVEMENTS OF SLOVENIANS IN NBA (up to season end 2019) Beno Udrih



2 titles (2005, 2007)

Saša Vujačić



2 titles (2009, 2010)

Radoslav Nesterović

1 title (2005)

Goran Dragic



All Star (2018)

Luka Doncic



Rookie of the year (2019)





Marko Milić jumping over the car at the 1995 Slovenian All Star in Ljubljana. He would go on to play in NBA.





Milić playing for the Suns (left picture) and Beno Udrih and Radoslav Nesterović for Spurs (right picture) Saša Vujačić alongside one of the greatest basketball players Kobe Bryant.





Boštjan Nachbar (left picture) and Uroš Slokar (right picture).





Primož Brezec at the time playing for Toronto.





Brothers Zoran Dragić (left picture) and Goran Dragic both played for Suns at one point of their careers.

SLOVENIA’S SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR 2018

Luka’s first title, 7 needed to beat the record of Svet



It took more than 40 years for a basketball player to receive the award for the best Slovenian sportsman. It was Goran Dragic in 2017. Before him only two players received this honorable title. The first one was the legendary Ivo Daneu in 1969 (the latter became a world champion with Yugoslavia in 1970) and the second one was Vinko Jelovac who received this award twice (in 1973 and 1974).

They started giving out this award in 1968 and 50 years later Luka Doncic took over the honorable title from Goran Dragic. In a country which is most known for its successes in winter sports, Slovenia proudly handed over the award to one of its youngest athletes. Luka Doncic has a chance to beat a long lasting ‘record’ of skiers Bojan Križaj who received this award 5 times and Mateja Svet who received it 7 times. Mateja’s story is especially interesting, because she officially retired from skiing at the age of only 21.

Luka wasn’t present at the ceremony, the award was given out to his mother Mirjam, but Donke Jr. did thank everybody in Slovenia for voting for him. Luka received 260 votes to beat the bicycle rider Primož Roglič (163 votes) and the biathlon competitor Jakov Fak (116

votes).





Mother Mirjam Poterbin and the host are watching Luka Doncic on big screen at the ceremony in Ljubljana.





Ivo Daneu (with the ball) and Vinko Jelovac (right picture) were the first basketball players to receive the award.





Goran Dragic also wasn’t able to personally receive the award.

THE 2018 SIGNATURE AFFAIR

Someone forged Luka’s signature for representation



The whole thing basically started in 2015, three years prior to the affair in 2018. Mirjam Poterbin terminated the existing contract with Luka’s manager and decided to sign with Bill Duffy. I was surprised why nobody asked Mirjam why she did that. Why did she terminate the existing contract basically still remains a mystery, for nobody asked. I would’ve had asked, had I’d been in my home country at the time. Sasha Doncic immediately gave a statement concerning this Mirjam’s decision. “I don’t think it’s fair. The person, who stood by Luka all these years, should’ve had the opportunity to represent him as a manager until the age of 18. It’s a moral issue,” said Sasha.

The title of one of the articles in Slovenia concerning this termination of the contract was: The Doncic-Poterbin battle for Luka’s future millions in NBA. There were rumors that she did that because she didn’t want Sasha to get the money. And why would Sasha get the money? Well, it was rumored that the then existing manager was Sasha’s close friend who promised to help Donke Sr. financially with his project of having a basketball center for kids. The amount that the manager would get was around 700 thousand dollars, so…

One of the Slovenia’s media houses reported that when Luka’s basketball life started getting serious, he was obligatory to have at least one of his parents cosigning the contract with the manager, because he hadn’t yet turned 18. This was strange to me because of two reasons.

Firstly, as I recall, Sasha always negotiated his paycheck with clubs himself, so it was a bit of a surprise that Luka didn’t follow this policy of Donke Sr. Secondly, Slovenian legislation doesn’t say anything about a teenager being obliged to have a signature of his parents on the contract of the employer (you even don’t have to finish grammar school to have a job in Slovenia and every firm or company has its own policy or better yet terms of employment).

Sasha Doncic publically stated that he was against signing with Bill Duffy. “He stabbed me in the back once, so I don’t want to see him near my son,” said Sasha in one of the interviews. It is not known, however, a whole lot about this conflict between Bill Duffy and Sasha Doncic.

It’s not known what exactly Bill did to Sasha and the whole thing was an ever bigger mystery because of the before mentioned reason that Sasha never had a manager. Maybe he didn’t have one because of the whole thing with Bill…

Then later, in 2018, someone forged Luka’s signature for representation and Mirjam Poterbin went to the Police. She later said that she doesn’t exclude the possibility that Sasha was somehow involved in the whole affair. But Donke Sr. quickly denied the whole thing.

Some people were saying both Sasha and Mirjam were a bit naive when receiving information about management representation and that Luka could’ve negotiated his contract himself. But everybody in this world has its own set of rules. Or like the American famous actor Brad Pitt said in the movie 12 Monkeys: “There's no right. There's no wrong. There's only popular opinion.”





SEASON END 2019 WITH DALLAS MAVERICKS

What a start to his first season in NBA for Donke Jr.



Two million Euros or a little over 2 million dollars was the transfer fee for Luka Doncic. His 3 year contract with Dallas Mavericks would bring him 18.5 million dollars.

Many people thought he would have a tough time adapting to the American way of playing basketball, but he proved them wrong. In a country where the cheapest NBA ticket costs around 15 dollars and the most expensive one almost 4 thousand dollars he quickly became the new hero of the league. From NBA’s smallest city (Salt Lake City, team: Utah Jazz) with a population of 1.2 million people to the largest one (New York, teams: Knicks, Brooklyn Nets) with a population of 20.2 million Luka Doncic time after time showed what he was made of. The most interesting thing for me was that his team Dallas Mavericks, despite being almost last at one point, held the second highest game attendance in the league (right after 76ers).

Luka had a record after record, youngest this, youngest that, the media just couldn’t stop writing about this player. The only thing as an investigative reporter which seemed a bit ‘off’

for me (in February of 2019 when these lines were written down) was the fact that his field goal percentage was a bit lower than in the 2017/2018 season. But these percentages vary for each player during their careers and don’t really matter that much. What does matter is that from 2018 onwards, Americans and the whole world got to know Luka Doncic and this book basically wants to give them everything they didn’t know about him so far, because in the future, they can basically track his achievements themselves.





LIST OF BIGGEST BASKETBALL ARENAS (info up to year end 2019) IN THE WORLD



IN EUROLEAGUE



IN NBA



Philippine Arena (Philippines)

Stark Arena (Serbia)



United Center (Chicago)

55 000 seats





24 232 seats





20 917 seats



Paris La Défense Arena (France) Nikos Galis Olympic (Greece) Quicken Loans Arena (Cleveland)

40 000 seats





19 250 seats





20 562 seats



Carrier Dome (Syracuse, USA)

Arena Zagreb (Croatia)

Little Caesars Arena (Detroit)

35 500 seats





16 000 seats





20 491 seats





Logo of Luka’s Dallas Mavericks (left) and the start of playing against the biggest superstars (James Harden).





Luka was able to make back to back blockades against the big man LeBron James during the game in LA.





The Alfa and Omega Stephen Curry and the rising star Luka Doncic alias Donke Jr.

THE 2019 NBA ALL STAR GAME

Despite a huge amount of votes he wasn’t selected



“It was politics. That’s what it was, pure politics and nothing else, if you ask me,” said one of my friends back in Slovenia. There were even some racial remarks. “That nigger, Shaq, saying Luka wasn’t good enough for All Star… What does he know, anyway,” he added.

Luka was only one out of three players to receive more than 2 million votes after the second return of the All Star Voting and only LeBron James had more votes than the young Slovenian. But as you probably know, votes are only a part of the selection process and the coaches have the last word of who is picked and who isn’t. And they didn’t pick Luka.

Comments on social websites skyrocketed, with the majority of Slovenians, naturally, being frustrated and angry. “He should’ve been picked,” was the most common comment on Facebook.

Donke Jr. was though picked for the Rising Stars Game. But once again Slovenian fans weren’t happy, this time with his performance on the game itself. One of the articles in our home country had a title: Tresla se je gora, rodila se je miš. The exact translation would’ve been: The mountain shook, a mouse was born. Luka played for Team World against Team USA and lost with a result of 144 points to 161. Donke Jr. scored 13 points, had 5 rebounds and 9 assists (3 assists more than any other player in his team!). “This game was just for fun, for the fans,” was his statement and the latter one or better yet the latter ones are basically the same every year. Luka played with players like Ben Simmons, Bogdan Bogdanović etc. And you can see full results on Wikipedia under Rising Stars Challenge.





THE LAST 10 NBA ROOKIES OF THE YEAR WHO WERE SELECTED FOR THE ALL STAR

GAME IN THEIR FIRST NBA SEASON (info up to the season end 2019) NAME





PPG



2011

Blake Griffin (Los Angeles Clippers)

20.8

2003

Yao Ming (Houston Rockets)



13.0

1998

Tim Duncan (San Antonio Spurs)

18.2

1995

Grant Hill (Detroit Pistons)



18.4

1993

Shaquille O'Neal (Orlando Magic)

24.0

1992

Dikembe Mutombo (Denver Nuggets)

19.1

1990

David Robinson (San Antonio Spurs)

23.2

1986

Patrick Ewing (New York Knicks)

20.9

1985

Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls)



27.4

1985

Hakeem Olajuwon (Houston Rockets)

20.7





Luka received a huge amount of votes for the All Star Game but had to settle for playing at the Rising Star game.





Hamidou Diallo who dunked over Shaq was the one who won the 2019 All Star Dunk competition.

LUKA BECOMES NBA ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Only the second European player after Pau Gasol!



The first thing to be mentioned here is the following: Luka won his first medal at a major competition at the age of 17 – Pau Gasol did it when he was 21. And if we take into consideration that Luka’s medal was gold, then the age difference between them is even bigger, for Pau got his first gold only at the age of 26! Some experts say this is the first and foremost reason why Luka is bigger than Pau. But putting emotions aside and looking only at the statistics, here’s what we get: Luka was better than Pau in the two of the three major statistic categories; points (21 against 18) and assists (6 to 3). Only rebounds were a bit ‘short’

(8 to 9). But Luka played 4 minutes per game less than Pau!

There hasn’t been such a high scoring rookie in NBA since Blake Griffin in 2011 and Allen Iverson back in 1997, which automatically puts Luka amongst the big names of this league and of the sport in general.

The battle for the title NBA rookie of the year wasn’t a close call in the minds of many, but the American Trea Young, who was picked as fifth at the 2018 NBA draft, put in some good performances at the end of the season, some ‘monster games’ as it was written somewhere, making it interesting all the way through to the last game of the regular part of the season.

In the first decades NBA didn’t have rookies outside the US winning this title, now (and with now I mean when these lines are written down in June 2019), in the last 5 years, the world of basketball witnessed 3 players from other countries getting this famous award. The latter was first given out back in 1953!

There are many white players in the history of NBA who won the Rookie of the Year Award.

Larry Bird is probably the most known Caucasian to win this honorable title, but there are some other notable names. And on the internet site ranker.com you can find 100 best NBA white players of all time. While I’m writing these lines in May 2019, Luka lies in 47th place, while the first five places go as followed: Larry Bird, Jerry West, Dirk Nowitzky, John Stockton and Steve Nash. In 1971 two white players shared the NBA Rookie of the Year Award – Geoff Petrie and Dave Cowens.





LIST OF NONAMERICANS WHO WON THE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR AWARD (up to 2019) 2019

Luka Doncic (Slovenia)



2018

Ben Simmons (Australia)



2015

Andrew Wiggins (Canada)



2002

Pau Gasol (Spain)





Luka Doncic is holding the trophy for the best rookie of the year of the 2018/2019 NBA basketball season.





The Spaniard Pau Gasol (lef picture) was the first European NBA rookie of the year. Right picture: Trea Young.

HOW LUKA UNFRIENDED ME ON FACEBOOK

And how I unfriended his father at the same time



When I started writing Luka’s basketball biography, I knew Luka was against Igor Djurovic’s project about the life of the young Slovenian. This was a bit of a surprise for me, because the three time Formula 1 champion Ayrton Senna, for example, has several biographies on the market, written by different authors. And Senna is not the only one! Okay, if you don’t have time to answer a few questions to make the biography better, not a problem, but you can’t be against someone who writes about you. That would be the same if someone said: “Yeah, well, I am against you playing basketball, Luka.” Former Sasha Doncic’s teammate at Slovan Miloš Paravinja from Croatia said to me that he didn’t understand Luka and where the problem was, and that Luka should know the difference between a biography, basketball biography and autobiography.

I decided to publish the first edition of my e-book about Luka’s basketball life for free, because I didn’t have the rights for some of the photos. And if you don’t have these rights you can’t sell them. But you can share them – as same as you do on Facebook.

But as soon as the National Library in Slovenia approved the book, Luka’s mother Mirjam and some of the Slovenia’s media houses bashed at me, as if I did something wrong. But I didn’t do anything wrong. The Slovenian 338th criminal law article clearly states that I would’ve had done something wrong, had I tried to sell the book. The 338th criminal law states that nobody has a right to take a picture of anyone and sell it. But this would mean that (for example) newspapers break the law every day, for Luka’s picture (while playing) is taken on a regular basis and is sold on a regular basis. There’s obviously a clear case of double standards and a hole in the law itself.

As soon as the book was approved by the National Library, Mirjam publicly said some lies about me, like I was rude to her and stuff, and Luka unfriended me on Facebook. At the same time I unfriended Luka’s father Sasha because he said some lies about me and was rude (in his case, not publicly, but nonetheless) even before the National Library informed me that my book was approved.

The truth is this: when I started writing the biography, I contacted Luka over Facebook, but obviously he set his profile in such a way that you can’t reach him (which is understandable because of a huge amount of other Facebook friends). I wanted just a few statements from him to make the biography a bit more colorful. Then I contacted Mirjam Poterbin, but I don’t think she actually understood what I wanted from her, because she immediately wanted to get me involved in the 2018 signature affair. Her first words sounded like this: “You are probably one of those people who know only one side of the story, so maybe it would be good if someone wrote the truth of what Sasha is capable of doing to his own son.” This statement of hers was totally out of context, because I wanted to write a nice little story about Luka, but she immediately wanted to use me to show Sasha as a worse person than he actually was! Her next words were contradictory: in one sentence she said that she loves to help out people, she’s just not going to help me. That was odd. Especially because she obviously gave permission for the use of Luka’s photographs for an article published in the newspaper Slovenske Novice on 29th July 2018 – a newspapers which had a daily frequency of up to 80

thousand copies per day! But it doesn’t stop here. When I showed her some of my old articles and Sasha’s statements, she said: “Yes, back then he was telling the truth. But now he’d probably lie and say something totally different.”

The whole Doncic-Poterbin family was against my e-book about Luka, in Sasha’s case even before I explained to him, how it would look like. I couldn’t understand why at the same time the Doncic-Poterbin family wasn’t against Luka’s biographies on Wikipedia. But seeing this

site’s net worth of 3 billion dollars (compared to just a couple of millions that Luka has), it quickly became clear to me: double standards! The English version of Wikipedia wrote personal things about Luka, like the fact that his parents are divorced, that the custody for Luka went to Mirjam, that the godfather is Radoslav Nesterovic and that he has a dog named Hugo. And the Russian Wikipedia even wrote that from 2019 onwards Luka played for Indiana Pacers. There was no fuss concerning these two biographies on Wikipedia, not from Luka, Mirjam or Sasha, but they made a whole spectacle concerning biographies which I and Igor Djurovic wrote. It was a bit unfair, if you ask me.

Let me explain why I thought Sasha was rude to me and unprofessional. When I tried to find out when exactly Luka started showing his interest for basketball and when exactly Donke Jr.

officially became a member of his first basketball club (Olimpija), he said: “Why don’t you ask my ex-wife. She claims it was when he was with her, when she took him out for a walk and he saw some kids play. And that Igor character?! Well, he’s a psychopath too.” Sasha also judged me because I wanted to be exact when writing about his time in Belgrade with the club Red Star; because Sasha claimed he played there in the 1991/1992 season, but the club’s sites had him in their archives a year later. I contacted him to confirm it was in 1992/1993 and all he said to me was: “And you call yourself an investigative reporter?! How the hell am I supposed to know?!” He was judging me for trying to be exact at my work. That was so idiotic from his side.

That’s when I turned the page.

It was clear to me that these people are primitive and aren’t very smart, moral, educated etc.

Mirjam was associated with work in a beauty saloon (pedicure, manicure and stuff), while there were rumors that even Luka’s own father once stated that his son is, and I quote: “Stupid for school as hell.”

It was also interesting hearing Sasha speak about morality at one point, especially with rumors that he gambled and had a very colorful nightlife.

When writing Luka’s biography all sorts of information which had nothing to do with basketball started to fly my way. Like that it was Mirjam Poterbin who first cheated Sasha Doncic with another partner and not the other way around as it was more often said. As a journalist you get all sorts of information, but I have to underline that most of the famous people I met in my life morally suck. They cheat, gamble, drink, do drugs, tell you one thing but then do the other, and so on...

At the time of the release of my e-book some were starting to say that Igor and I were taking advantage of Luka to earn money, but it was quite the other way around. Luka, along with other sportsmen of popular sports, are currently taking advantage of the working class heroes who work at least 8 hours a day (compared to the 3 to 4 hours a day that sportsmen work). An average wage in Slovenia is around 1700 dollars, yet the majority of people work for 800, 900

dollars a month. This is because the profits which workers make in their companies go to sportsmen and other people. The 104th article of the Slovenian constitution states that the president of Slovenia has to work according to his conscience and for the welfare of the nation. But how can we talk about the welfare of the nation, when a teenager like Luka had millions of dollars, while the majority of the people barely made it through the month?! And this majority built roads, planes, halls and everything that Luka and other sportsmen need and use to do their jobs. Luka was already a millionaire when he signed a contract with Dallas Mavericks for no less than 18.5 dollars and seeing him give sneakers to a kid with cancer and driving off into the sunset with a Porsche… Kind of sick, don’t you think? More so, if you take into consideration that a 13-year old kid playing soccer with me at a school playground (to where I go for recreation) agreed with all of these words that I just wrote!

Some people said that the person who was taking advantage of Luka the most was his own mother. One of my friends asked me the following questions: “Who pays for her life in USA?

Who pays for 41 airplane or bus tickets for games outside Dallas? Who pays for her food?

Who pays for a roof over her head?” There was even a 17 year old professional women’s basketball player who stated: “The fact is, she is always on TV and became famous because of him. Her life was here in Slovenia. Luka was 18 back in 2017, so what on earth is she doing with him in America?! And even if it is the president of the club that pays for everything, why doesn’t she trade places with that kid with cancer that just got those silly basketball shoes?!”

But 18.5 million dollars wasn’t enough for Luka. No. He had to make his own calendar and sell that as well. Pathetic, if you ask me.

But the story doesn’t end here. Mirjam, alongside with her well known lawyer Nataša Pirc Musar and EkipaSN’s journalist Andrej Miljković wrongfully accused me that I stole Mirjam’s and Aleš Fevžer’s photographs (Aleš Fevžer is a renowned photographer in Slovenia). They put the whole thing on TV and into papers as well. I sent them proof that I didn’t steal anyone’s photos, but nobody apologized. Besides, sharing a photo or selling it is two different things!

Andrej Miljković with whom I worked with for 3 years at Ekipa and with whom I had a personal thing or two, should’ve been quiet. It was because of him that Igor Djurovic lost the job at Ekipa in the first place. It was said that Miljković’s father paid Andrej’s employment with several advertisements of his company Eta (these advertisements were published in Ekipa). The figure was around 500 to 1000 dollars per advertisement and the advertisements were regularly published. When Miljković joined Ekipa, it suddenly became crowded, so they fired Igor Djurovic and put Rok Košir from the international soccer in his place. As soon as the main editor of this newspaper Goran Obrez made the change, people started coming up to me with: “The basketball pages aren’t what they were when Igor was around. No interviews, no last-minute sensational news, nothing. There’s no heart in them. Igor lives for basketball and that’s what’s missing.” It’s interesting how they fired Igor in the first place. They told him not to come to work, but then in court, when Igor sewed them, Ekipa claimed he failed to come to work… Igor is no angel, though. He and I had a huge disagreement once and I could’ve embarrassed him publicly. I decided not to for some reason, but I have to mention that Igor’s words that he is a good friend with Sasha aren’t very true. Igor once labeled Sasha as Blef Dončić or Bluff Doncic and was hugely offended when one of our common friends named Dragan once stated: “Sasha can beat Igor in basketball with just one arm.”

Oh, two more things about daily sports newspaper Ekipa. First thing: from 2004 to 2019 this newspaper stole photos from websites more often than any other newspaper in Slovenia. They signed these photographs with VSZI or WTTFI in translation (WTTFI means We Took Them From Internet). And second thing: when I gave Ekipa my first notice or better yet when I stopped working for them on 14th June 2004, they stole my article (preview before a Formula 1 race) from a website named F1magazin.com on 19th June.

I have to mention that Sasha Doncic made me mad once even before these whole farces with Luka’s biographies started. Back in 2013 and 2014 I wrote a book about the club Slovan or better yet, about Slovan’s 2005/2006 season. I was working as a press representative at this club at that time, so I had access to certain useful information. But suddenly I received a call from Sasha’s former teammate Miloš Paravinja who was then the president of this club.

Paravinja said to me that Sasha asked him if I could delete the anecdote of Sasha smoking under the shower. It was well known that Sasha smoked, but what made this anecdote funny was the fact that he always did it under the shower right after a game. His smoking was also the reason why journalists sometimes had to wait ages to get a statement from him. Anyway, I wasn’t angry because of Sasha’s request. I was upset because Donke Sr. didn’t contact me directly. So the project didn’t see the light of day. I don’t think Sasha ever found out from me that it was I who got him a song request on radio Hit for his 33rd birthday back in 2007 and

not Igor Djurovic who was actually at the place of Sasha’s party. Igor called me and I called the radio station. The title of the song was Lipe cvatu from a Balkan group named Bijelo Dugme and the moderator played it with pleasure, for radio Hit was from Domžale and Sasha’s club Helios from Domžale had just won the national championship. The moderator even had a long and funny speech, full of jokes, which made it even better. These were great times!

I have to mention one more thing. I was against such amounts in sports (where we find constant doping affairs, corrupted referees, sold-out games because of bets etc.) as early as 2005. I also disagreed with Sasha concerning the budget at Slovan in the 2005/2006 season.

Donke Sr. claimed that the company Mobitel provided Slovan 600 thousand dollars, while the president of the club (I think it was Janez Maher at the time) said to me that it was a million dollars. But getting reliable information these days… I also have to write about the following: When I first visited Sasha concerning Luka’s biography, he said to me I should visit him the next day. And then the next day became the next day regularly and concerning the fact that time is money and that fuel costs… This was also one of the reasons why I unfriended him on Facebook. Not to mention his lies that he told me from the start he wasn’t interested in my project. “Ask me things only concerning me and Ilirija,” were his exact words. But considering Luka is his son... It was interesting that it was never a problem asking him anything about Luka, but I guess money (or lack of it for that matter) and fame make people a bit different.





My 2013/2014 project which Sasha in a way prevented to be published (on the cover: Zoran Dragic in 2007).





Luka’s car Porsche, price of which starts not lower than 57 thousand dollars, at least according to the internet, and sneakers (right picture) which cost around 100 dollars. You decide what is moral and what’s propaganda?!

THE FATHER AND SON RELATIONSHIP

Igor claimed that it’s not true that they don’t speak



There’s an old Serbian saying. It’s very primitive and it goes something like this: ‘Svima sam se osvetijo, samo ocu nisam, on je meni majku j***, a ja njemu nisam.’ The translation is the following: “I had my revenge. I speared nobody, except my father. He f***** my mother while I didn’t f*** his.” Rough, I know. Here’s another one: ‘There is no greater joy for a father than when his son is born. And no greater joy for a son than when his father dies.’

These old sayings are philosophical, of course, and not a rule. But lots of sons have problems with their fathers. Some of them drink. Some of them have other women. Some gamble. Some are greedy. And so on.

The story about their relationship began as soon as 2013 when I was working as a press representative at Slovan. Even then, before the whole 2015 and 2018 affairs with management representation for Luka, there were talks that Sasha was trying to bail himself out of financial problems through his son. And that their relationship wasn’t as good as it was up to 2008

when Mirjam and Sasha got divorced. It was said Sasha was trying to use Luka, take advantage of his talent. I myself once experienced how a mind of a certain father functioned.

It was during a conversation with someone I knew and he said: “If I invest in my son, buy him sneakers, take him to practices and so on, then he owes me. It’s as simple as that.” Some, of course, disagree with this, saying that parents should have unconditional love towards their children. “If you give him something, you shouldn’t expect something in return. Having parents like that is horrible,” said one of my friends.

When I started writing this book, I asked Sasha if he and Luka have a good relationship, if they talk and such. I asked him this because there were lots of rumors that after the signature affair Luka had resentments towards his father. Sasha wasn’t very convincing when he gave his answer, he just kind of nodded. But it would be unfair towards him if I was to say that he was lying. Maybe he just wasn’t in a mood giving long answers, for it was known Sasha hated such questions about his son as: “How does Luka feel in USA?”

When Igor Djurovic came from the States, he immediately gave an interview for Dnevnik (probably the best newspaper in Slovenia) and what caught my attention was the title.

Journalist Borut Mehle chose to put into the title the following statement of Igor: “It is not true that Luka and Sasha don’t speak to each other.”

Some were even saying that Luka changed his attitude towards Sasha after the latter had a child with Nikolina Dragičević in 2017 (when Donke Jr. got a half-sister). But this was just a rumor and nothing more.

There was another rumor which was in a way interesting and in a way absurd. In June 2019 I heard some gossip that that Sasha got a restraining order. He was allegedly forbidden to come near his son. It was said that it was Mirjam who filed for the restraining order, but considering the fact that Luka was already 18 at the time, I think he could’ve filed the restraining order himself. People talk, what I can say.





Sasha and Luka giving interviews for ŠKL and shaking hands when Luka was already in Madrid.





Father and son in 2007 on the left picture and in the early years of Luka’s life in Spain with Real Madrid.





Luka and Sasha just after Luka’s win at EuroBasket in 2017 (left picture) and seen a few years earlier on snow.

LUKA DONCIC AS A MAN

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree



Luka Doncic as a basketball player and Luka Doncic as a man, as a human being if you will, are two very different things. And everybody says you first have to be a human being, only than can you be a basketball player, a police man, a doctor, a teacher etc.

Luka Doncic is good at being a basketball player, but he sucks at being a man. He and sportsmen with his kind of character think that they deserve all those millions of dollars. They don’t deserve that kind of money. They just got it! It was basically given to them.

They didn’t build roads on which they drive. They didn’t make planes with which they fly.

They couldn’t even make themselves balls with which they play the damn game and probably don’t know from which tree you get rubber to make the ball in the first place. They never stop to think that they wouldn’t be in the place that they are now if previous generations wouldn’t have had provided all that they need to play basketball. They never think that. Most of them think just about the money, cars, luxury items, women, silly tattoos, fame, being something stupid as ‘the best’ (while it’s known that nobody can actually be the best), etc.

When my father came from Bosnia to Slovenia to work back in 1969, people played basketball basically for sandwiches. And that’s how it should be now. Even the man who invented basketball, didn’t do that because of money, but because he wanted students to have some kind of activity. This man is none other than James Naismith who is probably turning in his grave right now. I don’t think Luka and the majority of basketball players even know who Mr. Naismith is.

Just like his father Sasha, Donke Jr. obviously likes to spend money for luxury cars, so I can easily write that both of them don’t know that luxury cars pollute much more than ordinary cars. But they don’t care about pollution, noise etc. No, all they care about is their own good.

When I first read that Luka was against Igor Djurovic’s biography, I came across Donke Jr.’s statement that he had it tough in his life and his mom stated that the biography should be written by someone close to the family and nobody else. Obviously, he wants to make himself bigger than he already is. Who doesn’t have it tough in life, right? Now, some say that everybody has the same chance of becoming Luka. Yeah right. That kind of statements can only come from mentally retarded people who don’t realize that some people had car accidents through no fault of their own, some had diseases through no fault of their own etc.

Luka Doncic cries like a little baby (like Cristiano Ronaldo) when he loses a game, but when he sees a sick kid with cancer he doesn’t shed a tear. Sick, don’t you think? And they love him for it which makes it even sicker.

I just remembered one more thing. When I wrote Sasha had a wish of having a basketball center for kids, I forgot to mention that this was not because he wanted to give something back to the community, but probably because of a regular income – apposed to coaching where you can drop from the first league into second in a heart beat.

But what goes around comes around, right? His father is now a lying, fat, lazy (his assistant coach basically does all the work!) person who in front of a camera tries to be an angel, while in fact he’s a bit of a devil. He is also a coward, which was once confirmed even by his former teammate Simon Petrov when the latter found out from me that Sasha intervened through Miloš Paravinja during my project about Slovan.

You have to know something about Slovenia and the world in general. It’s full of hypocrites.

The latter judge other people for something, but then go and do exactly the same thing. You have to be very strong if you want to be one of the boy scouts or one of those who rarely makes a mistake.





As long as he has his Porsche, right? And on the right picture: crying like a little baby because of game. A game!





Sasha Doncic in his Audi back in 2010 (left picture) and James Naismith, inventor of basketball. No comment!

LUKA DONCIC CONTROVERSY

Controversy is basketball itself, let alone Luka



Basketball is violence. Basketball is war!

It’s basically a primitive game where there are no rules. And it’s the same with other sports.

It’s like Sasha Doncic said and like I already wrote: “There’s no more romance in basketball.

It’s too physical. Years before you had to be a talent to play. Now you just have to be strong.”

I couldn’t agree more. Basketball once didn’t have defense play in such a way as it does now.

In the old days you basically weren’t allowed even to touch your opponent, you immediately received a foul. Now, you almost lean on a player and it is okay. If you look at the footages of games from the 60’s and 70’s and compare them to latest ones… well, today it’s all about excessive elbow swinging, intentional fouls, travelling violations, palming carry, illegal dribble and so on. And Luka is no exception. Even in that famous double ankle breaker crossover video (this video will be mentioned later on in this book!) you can see him literally carrying the ball and not dribbling it. There’s another game from his time in Europe when he even got ejected because he hit his opponent (Pleiss) with such force that the latter soon had his face covered with blood. And the third video of Luka showed us how he pushed one opponent during offense.

Basketball game now, at least for me, is just yelling, thinking the referees stole the game from you and so on. It’s actually pathetic if you look at it from this side and is similar to Formula One racing: Two idiots go into a corner at speeds of 360 kph and think it’s their turn. Nobody is to blame if they touch. The guy behind has to cut inside to overtake and the guy in front has to defend. They are both idiots… It’s the same in basketball – that’s why it’s so hard to call it either an offensive foul or defensive foul.

One more thing is crucial here. Behind the camera Sasha Doncic, for instance, uses words like I don’t give a f*** or We f***** them up at that game. I heard him say the latter statement during his game with Pivovarna Laško against Partizan. Pivovarna Laško lost that game!

Yeah, they really F***** them up alright.

His son once used the F-word at a game against New Orleans in his first NBA season. But when he says it, it’s all alright, because he’s just a human being and so on. But if I was to say something like that, I’d be judged immediately. I really can’t understand these double standards in this world and the blindness of people who, for example, don’t know that Luka’s most common words for other great achievements in sports are ‘Kr neki’ or ‘Whatever’ in translation.

Let’s get something straight. I’m not against basketball. But I am against it in this way – with journalist being fans and writing for money under the table or writing according to results (if you are good, they’ll put you into the sky – but if you are bad, they’ll crash you into the ground). Also, every fan is now a journalist, an expert. Oh, and let us not forget the generals after battles: “No, no, if he did this or that, he’d won!”

C’mon!





Does this look like a guy who cares about overpopulation, wars, poverty, pollution and other world’s problems?





The bloody face of Tibor Pleiss, consequence of excessive elbowing by Luka Doncic, wasn’t unpunished.

RUMOR HAS IT…

…that Luka f***** the referee’s mother



As I wrote before, you get all sorts of information as a journalist or a writer. But one thing about Luka Doncic was repeatedly mentioned to me. When Luka was still at the beginning of his future basketball career, that is when he was still in Slovenia, he supposedly used to say bad things to referees. One of the more frequent verbal abuses was F*** your mother, referee.

One father of a basketball player which was only 1 or 2 years older than Luka said to me that Donke Jr. got away with it only because of his father. “He was lucky to have the right last name. Without the name he would’ve had it much tougher in life. Can you imagine him having a name Luka Poterbin and making it? He was privileged,” said this father with whom I spoke.

When we talk about rumors, I have to say that they were frequent even in the days when Sasha Doncic was playing. One rumor about Sasha was especially interesting, at least for me.

It was said that his Flamenco was basically robbed. “The robbers took everything that was valuable in there,” said a close friend of mine who knew or better yet knows Sasha. “It was then that the real problems started with the restaurant,” he added.

A rumor or better yet gossip is the thing newspapers live for. When I was working for daily newspaper Ekipa, its editor Goran Obrez once suggested that we should print a lie on the cover of the issue which was to be sold on 1st April (that is on the day of April fools). It was back in 2004 or 2005, and I can clearly remember the immediate reaction of Goran Cvijić who was then the handball editor. “I am against this. I mean, they’re not taking us seriously as a newspaper in the first place, and if we do this, it’s just going to get worse for us,” said Cvijić. Even Sasha Doncic kind of criticized this newspaper. “When I was the 2006 All Star MVP all I got was a year long subscription to Ekipa, while everybody before and after me got much more expensive gifts,” said Sasha who was supposedly quite critical about this newspaper in general and rather gave interviews for Dnevnik.

One of my friends with friends close to the Doncic-Poterbin family said that Luka, Mirjam and Sasha needed or better yet need psychiatric help. “As parents you have to protect your child. And you have to teach him about morality. First of all, Luka sustained quite a few injuries even before he turned 20. So as a parent I’d tell him that further pushing your body for something unimportant as a title is totally unnecessary if you are going to spend the next 30 or 40 years of your life with pain or even worse – like soccer player Gabriel Batistuta –

with painkillers! Both Sasha and Mirjam are failing in this task. One more thing I would’ve learned my son is the fact that USA in which he plays now, is the only country to drop an atomic bomb on a city. That is, knowingly, on hospitals, kindergartens, schools etc. Also, USA attacked themselves with a civilian aircraft in 2011, then lied that it was the terrorists who did it, just so that they could go to Afghanistan and Iraq for heroin and oil. Further more, USA bombed Serbia, the country from which Luka basically comes from if we take into consideration his roots. And I could continue,” said this friend.

The one rumor which mostly caught my attention was the one in which Sasha supposedly tried to fix games because of sport bets. Now, you know that the world of sports unfortunately has these sorts of affairs and when Sasha started having financial problems, he supposedly tried to bail himself out with bets (it was during his time as a coach at Ilirija).





In his days as a youngster Luka supposedly never withheld himself with bad language towards the referees.





Upper picture is from time when Luka was with Real Madrid, this one is from his first NBA season.

SEASON END 2020 WITH DALLAS MAVERICKS

At one time MVP in the regular part of the season



Back in 2004 I had an interview with the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix winner Olivier Panis. I asked him if it’s true that if you get a better racing car you also become a better, faster driver.

The Frenchmen answered: “Absolutely! When you drive a better car, a car with which you are confident, your mind automatically changes. You push more, knowing you are fighting for the win now and not for ninth place.” Many thought Luka became a better player in 2020 because of a better team and not because of his own efforts. Better teammates meant more possibilities for a successful assist, more ‘useful balls’ and so on. An expert said: “If you put a player like Luka Doncic into a team which has bad players, his amazing talent immediately evaporates.

Especially if that team constantly loses games.” Many said that Luka improved in 2020

because of European players like Marjanovic and Porzingis. Especially Marjanovic helped out, mainly because Luka could now speak with someone in his ‘own’ language in the locker room. Sasha Doncic once said: “The atmosphere in the locker room is one of the key elements for getting a good result.” Luka’s team was much better in 2020 than in 2019 and at one point (Luka was injured at that time!) Dallas even beat the leading team Milwaukee Bucks.

Mavericks were second on the table for most of the early part of the season.

After the first weeks of this season Luka lead the NBA performance efficiency ratings. His PER was better than the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo (2019 MVP), James Harden and other prominent names. POP TV in Slovenia immediately invited Luka’s father Sasha Doncic into the studio to discuss Slovenian’s extraordinary achievement. After seeing this myself, I sent a text message to Sasha asking him: “Didn’t you say you are not answering to questions concerning your son?” Donke Sr. answered: “Delete my cell phone number and e-mail address, D. D.” At the same time, I heard that Sasha went to Belgrade together with Igor Djurovic and I thought: “First they spit on each other, now they ride together to Serbia.”

By the way, Sasha coached a different team this season. He went from Ilirija, which dropped into second league, to Šentjur, which played in the first league. But he was quickly sacked after a few loses.

Meanwhile Luka was busy with deciding which offer for sneakers to choose. Eventually a multi-year contract with Air Jordan was signed, and the sum was supposedly 100 million dollars.

This season the young Donke Jr. made it to the NBA All Star game. All the details are described on wikipedia.org, so let’s skip this part and concentrate on his injuries. As written, it was predicted he would get one. And before the Corona virus outbreak in the first part of 2020 he sustained not one, not two, but three. First, he twisted his ankle. Then he renewed this injury during practice a couple of weeks later. And to make things concerning, he also injured his thumb. You could say these injuries were unavoidable, but unlike his father, who had only one injury in his entire career (a broken cheek bone), Luka’s stile of playing practically begged of getting hurt. Unlike his father, who was a bit stiff, Luka’s explosiveness led him to more injuries. Also, Luka often went towards the basket immediately after making a throw, which, of course, always adds the possibility of getting an injury. Injuries within the team were probably the main reason Dallas dropped to seventh place in their conference. They did though manage to get into play-offs and Luka shined once again. He averaged 31 points, 10

rebounds and 9 assists (which was a better statistic than that of LeBron James in the finals).

The Slovenian finished third in the PER’s table, right behind Antetokounmpo and Harden –

which was a big improvement compared to the previous season (51st place). Brandon Ingram, though, was the one that had taken the Most Improved NBA Player award – he improved his PER by 118 places (he went from 175th place in 2019 to 57th in 2020).





EuroBasket 2017, NBA season 2018/2019, list of injuries for Luka Doncic continued in the 2019/2020 season.





Luka Doncic dunking at the 2020 NBA All Star Game which he and his team won with a result of 157 to 155.

DONCIC’S EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE

His mother publicly showed Luka’s papers, but…



At a time when Luka was settling down in NBA, that is, in his first two seasons, his mother publicly showed Slovenian’s education papers to an American journalist, probably because of some allegations that he hadn’t finished school. Let’s remember, Kevin Durant was one of the first to bring the subject up and I wrote about it at the beginning of this book. This was her attempt to show her son in a better light than some people saw him, but nothing was said if those shown papers were that of grammar school or high school. It is very questionable if Luka even has a high school diploma, especially if we think he started playing professional basketball at the age of 15, the age at which most people start attending high school. During the 2019/2020 season I got to know a young Slovenian teenager who was playing in Italy and he said that the teachers basically just write a grade which you need in order to pass school. I myself have seen my friends passing subjects of which they had no clue of. This was mainly in grammar school. Teachers passed you if you lacked at, let’s say English – if they knew you were going to be a cook, hairdresser, electrician etc. Sometimes they passed you just because they didn’t want you over the summer (too much work).

I did an article once about sportsmen and education and it was clear that most of the top athletes weren’t very educated. Luka’s education and therefore knowledge was, at least for me, widely shown, when he put the ‘equality’ sign on his jersey right after the racial tensions in USA after George Floyd was killed by the Police. Luka should have known, that equality in a sense means that every person on this planet who eats has to plant his own food. Let me explain further. No one can have millions of tons of potatoes, tomatoes, corn etc. It becomes rotten. But you can have millions of dollars on your bank account. Luka Doncic’s paycheck at that time was 15 thousand dollars per hour or 4 dollars per second. And if we take into consideration that 4 dollars means 4 kilograms of tomatoes that you can buy in a store, there is no way you can produce that amount on a field in a single second! That’s because you need hours to prepare the field, plant the field, water the field and so on. Talk about equality…





Luka’s sign ‘equality’ right after the racial tension in USA during the first part of 2020.





Does he even know what ‘equality’ actually means? (on the picture with his teammates)



LUKA DONCIC’S RECORDS AND MOVES

Donke Jr. with a double ankle breaker crossover



One of the youngest or youngest – that’s what characterizes Luka Doncic as a player.

Whether it was in the Spanish ACB league, in EuroLeague, in the national team or now in NBA, this word (youngest) totally fit him. Winning the European Championship (and not only winning, but being the key player!) at the age of only 17 – boy, I didn’t even know hot to walk when I was that age (if you allow me to be a bit humorous). On 11th January 2019 Real Madrid Basket posted on Facebook a video with his best moves and one immediately reminded me of that famous Michael Jordan move against Bryon Russell in 1998. It was against Barcelona, when Luka unintentionally made a fool out of one of their players. The move was later named double ankle breaker crossover. Luka’s full-court shot against Barcelona was officially proclaimed as the best move of the 2017/2018 EuroLeague season.

As for his records and development of the latter ones, well, you can see one of those developments below.





LUKA’S HIGHEST SINGLE GAME SCORES BY SEASONS



Season end 2020

43 points



Age: 21

in NBA

Season end 2019

35 points



Age: 19

in NBA

Season end 2018

33 points



Age: 18

in Europe

Season end 2017

23 points



Age: 17

in Europe

Season end 2016

15 points



Age: 16

in Europe

Season end 2015

played only 5 games

Age: 15

in Europe





Luka Doncic’s double ankle breaker crossover during the game against Barcelona in the 2017/2018 season.





Michael Jordan’s famous 1998 move against Bryon Russell looks a lot like Luka’s crossover.





The full court shot of Luka Doncic in the same game as he had done his double ankle breaker crossover.

LUKA DONCIC ON THE INTERNET

Links to info and photos of him and other links



FATHER SASHA DONCIC WIKIPEDIA (Slovenian and English version)

https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%C5%A1a_Don%C4%8Di%C4%87

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%C5%A1a_Don%C4%8Di%C4%87



MOTHER MIRJAM POTERBIN FACEBOOK SITE

https://www.facebook.com/mirjam.poterbin



LUKA DONCIC – OFFICIAL SITE

https://lukadoncic.com/?v=ce774d9cab3a



LUKA DONCIC WIKIPEDIA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luka_Don%C4%8Di%C4%87



LUKA DONCIC – PHOTOGALERY OF THE TIME WHEN HE PLAYED FOR OLIMPIJA

https://siol.net/galleries/gallery-195397/?image=15



LUKA DONCIC – TWITTER

https://twitter.com/luka7doncic/media



LUKA DONCIC – FACEBOOK

https://www.facebook.com/luka7doncic



ADDIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroleague_Basketball_Next_Generation_Tournament



LUKA DONCIC DOUBLE ANKLE BREAKER CROSSOVER AND FULL-COURT SHOT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fAsO0q7p2E



AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ABOUT THE YEAR 1999 WHEN LUKA WAS BORN

https://siol.net/sportal/kosarka/ko-se-rodi-luka-doncic-464337



AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW WITH SASHA DONCIC

https://www.dnevnik.si/1042755956



ARTICLES ABOUT LUKA DONCIC’S BIOGRAPHY WRITTEN BY IGOR DJUROVIC

https://www.dnevnik.si/1042854825

https://www.slovenskenovice.si/sport/timeout/luka-doncic-pravi-da-podatki-ne-drzijo-148393



SLOVENIA’S SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR (Slovenian and English version)

https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenski_%C5%A1portnik_leta

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenian_Sportsperson_of_the_Year



LIST OF YOUNGEST EUROLEAGUE PLAYERS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_EuroLeague_players_since_the_2000%E2%80%9301_season



EUROLEAGUE WIKIPEDIA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroLeague



PRICES OF NBA TICKETS

https://www.ticketnetwork.com/en/nbabasketball?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=NB

A+Europe&utm_content=c&tnk=GOO-[NBA+Europe]-[NBA+General]-[nbatickets+-+p]-

[c]&gclid=Cj0KCQiA-

onjBRDSARIsAEZXcKZvMTbAaB3Fa04RHN_lbNRRA0JFujGZDOsYghEPMiUV5NYs0LiBYvoaAtBdEAL

w_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds



PRICES OF DALLAS MAVERICKS TICKETS

https://www.ticketnetwork.com/en/sports/tickets/nba/dallas-mavericks/c/99000270



PRICES OF EUROLEAGUE TICKETS

https://www.viagogo.com/ww/Sports-Tickets/Basketball/Euroleague-Basketball-2018-19-

Tickets?AffiliateID=49&adposition=1t1&PCID=PSROWGOOSPOEUROL08A46D12E&AdID=324047453494

&MetroRegionID=&psc=&psc=&ps=&ps=&ps_p=0&ps_c=1062543243&ps_ag=48904682861&ps_tg=kwd-

304271742841&ps_ad=324047453494&ps_adp=1t1&ps_fi=&ps_fi=&ps_li=&ps_li=&ps_lp=9062551&ps_n=g

&ps_d=c&gclid=Cj0KCQiAnY_jBRDdARIsAIEqpJ1yMh9aSc12E2byZiKHcUZgxxGdTZ_awkuNgi6We3HuL

UbaA6RB3XYaAq-YEALw_wcB



NBA ATTENDENCE

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance



BIGGEST NBA ARENAS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Basketball_Association_arenas



BIGGEST ARENAS IN THE WORLD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_basketball_arenas



LIST OF BIGGEST EUROLEAGUE ARENAS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_EuroLeague_arenas



LIST OF US CITIES BY NUMBER OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS FRANCHISES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_and_Canadian_cities_by_number_of_major_professional_sport

s_franchises



PREMIER A SLOVENIAN BASKETBALL LEAGUE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_A_Slovenian_Basketball_League



FIRST FEDERAL BASKETBALL LEAGUE (OR YUGOSLAVIA’S FIRST LEAGUE)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Federal_Basketball_League



LIST OF SLOVENIAN CITIES BY POPULATION

https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam_mest_v_Sloveniji



1970 WORLD CUP FINAL IN TIVOLI HALL (YUGOSLAVIA VS USA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjT3t49XPNA



LINK TO THE VIDEO OF A 12 YEAR OLD LUKA IN THE 2011/2012 SEASON

https://www.facebook.com/slovenianba/videos/291321654858575/



MINICOPA TOURNAMENT VIDEO FROM 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIHUirZkjhI



ROOKIES SELECTED FOR THE NBA ALL STAR GAME

https://www.justallstar.com/nba-all-star-game/player-lists/rookies-all-star-game/



Title of the book: Luka Dončić BIOGRAPHY UP TO 2020

Author: Duško Dragić

Design: Duško Dragić

Photo editor: Duško Dragić

E-mail: dusko.dragic.dule@gmail.com

© Publisher: selfpublishment, 2020



Ljubljana, 2020

Način dostopa (URL): https://www.facebook.com/duskodragic.sales



Kataložni zapis o publikaciji (CIP) pripravili v Narodni in univerzitetni knjižnici v Ljubljani COBISS.SI-ID=31977475

ISBN 978-961-94900-1-3 (pdf)