DeAndre Ayton played 35 games for Arizona last season. Marvin Bagley III played 33 games last season for Duke. Jarnen Jackson Jr. played 35 for Michigan State. None of them played past March.
Luka Doncic played 61 games for Real Madrid — at a higher level than NCAA basketball — and the season ended two days before the NBA Draft. Plus in Europe, the practices are often far more strenuous than the games (many teams keep doing two-a-days through the season).
Not surprisingly after that long a season Dallas is not going to ask Doncic to play in the Las Vegas Summer League, reports Tim MacMahon of ESPN.
A Mavs source says Luka Doncic is unlikely to play in the Las Vegas summer league. The Mavs don’t want to overwork Doncic in the wake of a long EuroLeague season that ended earlier this week.
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) June 22, 2018
This was expected in most quarters no matter who drafted Doncic. Rest and recovery matter more than getting him into the glorified pickup games of Summer League.
Doncic will be ready to go when the season starts, and he will be one of the favorites to win Rookie of the Year.
