Luka Doncic hasn't played even half an NBA season and Mark Cuban has used his generational talent to a riff on the state of amateur basketball in the United States. Yes, Luka has played better than advertised as the reigning EuroLeague MVP and Final Four MVP with a step-back jumper out of your dreams. But he's not an example for why the AAU system or American basketball as a whole ruins players.
Except, that's pretty much what Cuban told EuroHoops when he claimed that, "If we took our best kids and seven years before they are McDonald’s all-American, we sent them over to Slovenia to get an education, the league would be a thousand times better."
Has Cuban even been to Slovenia, or are they a stand-in because Luka happens to have been born within the boundaries of their nation-state? Aside from Goran Dragic, and maybe Ben Odrih or pesky Sasha Vujacic, most NBA heads couldn't name a single other player from the tiny Eastern European country. There's a solid chance Cuban couldn't find it on a map, either.
Here's the full quote from Cuban when asked about the importance of Doncic's European basketball upbringing:
That last bit oozes condescension. The AAU system has issues, but they primarily stem from the NBA's outdated age minimum and the misguided belief in student-athletes, which is really just a way for colleges to tap into the only remaining legal form of indentured servitude.
But Cuban did have a point when he was asked about what impressed him the most about Luka's game, which doubles as a referendum on Cuban's on personality.
"He’s calm. He lets the game come to him," Cuban says. "The moment’s never too big for him. You never see that in a rookie. Ever."
But, if that's the case, Cuban's the antithesis of his star player.