As part of its tune-up for the upcoming FIBA World Cup, Team USA is scheduled to play Slovenia in an exhibition game on Saturday, Aug. 12.
That means a matchup against Luka Doncic, one of the best players in the world.
Slovenia’s head coach, Aleksander Sekulic, wants to keep Doncic’s workload manageable, as it will be the team’s second game in as many days, and he said that although Doncic will play versus the Americans, he may not play lots of minutes.
Slovenia coach said ‘the plan is to play’ Luka Doncic against Team USA, but he gave Luka an out. ‘It’s also depends on him, how he feels.’
— Joe Vardon (@joevardon) August 11, 2023
Doncic has become of the NBA’s premier superstars over the last four seasons, and he has transformed the Dallas Mavericks from a struggling lottery team to a legitimate playoff contender.
In the 2022-23 campaign, he established career-highs in scoring (32.4 points a game) and shooting accuracy (49.6 percent) while adding 8.6 rebounds and 8.0 assists per contest.
However, it was a disastrous year for the Mavs.
In the first half of the season, they seemed to be a lock to make the playoffs, but it also looked like they were incapable of building on their run to the Western Conference Finals the previous spring.
In an attempt to rectify this issue, they traded for Kyrie Irving in February, leading many to feel they had become a dark-horse championship contender.
Instead, Dallas came apart at the seams, losing games in bunches and failing to reach even the play-in tournament.
This coming season, they will have a full training camp with Irving and Doncic alongside each other, as well as new role players in Seth Curry and Grant Williams, and they’re hopeful they will return to the postseason and make some noise there.
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