Dallas Mavericks guard Theo Pinson has started serving an incredibly useful role on the Mavericks. The former Brooklyn Nets guard isn’t one that the Mavs are often playing in games but they went out of their way to extend his contract to keep him on the team. Why? It’s because he is the ultimate bench hypeman.
Pinson is a motivating force on the Mavs bench that has a good rapport with almost everyone on the team, including the coaching staff. He made Spencer Dinwiddie’s transition to the team easier as the pair had played together on the Nets, where Pinson had developed his hypeman reputation. Now, he is in the ear of Luka Doncic at the most pivotal moments of games.
As American players made pickup basketball a spectacle this summer by attending some of the most respected local games of the summer, European players like Luka, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo prepared to represent their countries at EuroBasket. That has led people to question how these players would do in a pickup game in the summer. Pinson had revealed how Luka would do on the ‘Locked On Mavericks‘ podcast earlier.
“We run two people at him, and he’s laughing. Running into the corner, step back fadeaway over two people, cash. And he just starts giggling.”
How Would Luka Doncic Do In A High-Profile Pickup Game?
This summer, we saw players like LeBron James, DeMar DeRozan, Dejounte Murray, and others play in iconic pickup games like the Drew League and the CrawsOver. Players like Luka were in Europe for all of this and couldn’t participate.
If Doncic is available in one of the following summers and made an appearance at any of these events, he would be just as dominant as Pinson is describing. Doncic is one of the most elite shot creators in the NBA, be it creating for himself or for others.
Doncic would drop incredible dimes on the court while hitting a few stepback 3s over his defenders. He does this to top-tier NBA talent regularly anyway, this wouldn’t be any different in the setting of a pickup game. Pinson has put the word out, but fans will be dying to one day watch Doncic in that setting doing what he does.
