Giannis Antetokounmpo Says Luka Doncic Is Maybe the Best Scorer Ever. He Is Not Wrong.

Giannis Antetokounmpo had just watched Luka Doncic put up 42 points and 13 assists on his team. Then he sat down at the podium and said something nobody asked him to say.

“Obviously, he’s one of the best scorers to play this game, if not the best,” Giannis said after Miami’s 138-117 loss at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night.

A reporter asked whether he meant right now. Giannis closed that door immediately. “Not right now. Of all time. I feel like some people are scared to say that, but he’s got to be up there.”

Look at What Doncic Is Doing

Doncic is 27 and averaging 38.3 points a game through seven games, the most in the league. He is also putting up 8.0 rebounds and 8.1 assists on 49.7 percent shooting and 42.7 percent from three.

His game log this season reads 28, 23, 52, 41, 37, 45 and 42. Monday was his 66th career 40-point game, tying Jerry West for 14th all time. He scored 24 of his 42 before halftime, his fifth straight game with at least 20 in the first half, the longest such run by a Laker since Kobe Bryant in 2007.

His career average of 29.32 points per game trails only Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. That is the actual company he keeps, which is why Giannis reaching for the words “of all time” reads as defensible rather than reckless.

The Rest of the Night Was Grim for Miami

Giannis was traded to the Heat on July 6 in a deal that sent Tyler Herro, Kasparas Jakucionis, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware, the draft rights to Nate Ament and a stack of future picks to Milwaukee. He is 31 and averaging 28.4 points, 12.3 rebounds and 5.7 assists on 58.6 percent shooting. On Monday he had 30 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 34 minutes.

Miami is 2-5. Los Angeles is 6-2. The Lakers piled up 39 assists, the most of JJ Redick’s tenure, and Giannis spent most of his availability talking about his own team rather than about Doncic.

“We’re not playing hard enough,” he said. “We’ve got to have some pride. Individual pride, first of all.” He added that “right now we don’t trust one another” and that the starting group looks like it is “going through the motions.” Asked whether the roster is good enough, he said: “Do I think we have the pieces? Yeah.”

Erik Spoelstra was shorter about it. “I’m not going to go on a rant right now, it’s between the coach and the team,” he said, before adding that Miami “had no chance” and that “I need to do a better job to get this group to defend to their potential.”

Bam Adebayo and Davion Mitchell pointed at the same problem. “We got to really trust each other on that end,” Adebayo said. “I feel like we think we give enough and it’s not.” Mitchell put it this way: “If you don’t want to play defense as a team, then you can’t do it by yourself.”

Giannis Sounded Resigned

The most revealing line was about scheming. “We’ve played Anthony Edwards; we didn’t take his game away. We played Luka; we didn’t take his game away,” Giannis said. “We’ve just got to figure out a game plan that can work against players like that.”

Doncic has not responded to the compliment. He spent his own session talking about the win and, oddly, about defense. “Obviously, I’m not the best defender in the NBA, but I think this year, I really took a step forward,” he said.

His teammates backed that up. Walker Kessler said Doncic “doesn’t get enough credit for his defense.” Quentin Grimes described the shooting as a “crazy little heater” and said he had never been on the court when everything a player put up looked like it was going in.

Giannis got to the point ahead of the rest of the league. The argument about where Doncic belongs among the great scorers has stopped being premature, and that is exactly what makes people flinch at hearing it said out loud.

Carlos Garcia

A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.