Two of the most promising young players in the NBA, Luka Doncic and Zion Williamson, finally clashed on the court on Wednesday night in a complete thriller that needed OT to define the winner.
The young players are expected to be two of the biggest figures in the league in the future seeing the quality they’ve shown in their short careers. It’s not crazy to see people debating who they will pick between these two and ESPN’s Stephen A Smith had an interesting response to that question.
The analyst explained why he picked Doncic over Zion on Wednesday’s edition of First Take, ahead of the first meeting between the young stars. While Max Kellerman picked Zion and his ‘room to grow’ at 19, Smith told otherwise:
“As much as I love Zion Williamson, we just have to think about the health of Zion Williamson, he had to sit down because he was walking around too heavy. Number 2: as much as big-time as Zion Williamson is, I’ve got news for you, Luka’s large, too. He’s a global icon, not to mention the fact that he’s averaging 29 a game, not to mention that this is a brother that can shoot. He pulls up deep; he’s a point guard that has the ball in his hands, and so because of the position that plays, the responsibility that Rick Carlisle has placed on his shoulders, the way he’s able to dictate the tempo, the pace of the game, the fact that he himself can control what he takes over because again he has the ball in his hands whereas Zion relies on somebody to give him that basketball — I’m just talking about what Luka could do in a year, he might be what he is, but what he is is damn special and this is a guard-oriented game, this NBA game. I’m going with the dude that’s got the ball in his hands, pretty much all the damn time. That’s Luka Doncic.”
At the end of the day, anybody can have a different opinion on this. There is no doubt these guys are set to rule the league when their time arrives, and that will happen sooner than later. Still, they have a bright future ahead and we can’t wait to see the next duels between Luka and Zion.
The first one was a victory for Dallas by a final score of 127-123.
