It is no secret that Luka Doncic has firmly cemented himself as the best player from the 2018 NBA Draft class and at a rapid pace.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Doncic’s Dallas Mavericks, the team that traded for him on draft night, find themselves up 2-0 in the Western Conference Finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Doncic hit the game-winning shot in Game 2 last night and now appears on the brink of reaching his first NBA Finals.
LUKA 3-POINTER IN THE CLUTCH TO TAKE THE LEAD WITH 3 SECONDS LEFT IN THE 4Q ????????
DAL-MIN (1-0) | 4Q Live on TNT pic.twitter.com/6hNV77J8aV
— NBA (@NBA) May 25, 2024
However, for many Suns fans, this recent showing from Doncic only reminds them of the player they could have had.
It was right there ???? pic.twitter.com/UImRkQx2HO
— Suns Are Better (@SunsAreBetter) May 25, 2024
Phoenix selected Deandre Ayton No. 1 overall in 2018 draft, while Doncic fell to the No. 3 pick, when the Mavs traded up with the Atlanta Hawks to select him.
Ayton was viewed as the consensus No. 1 prospect in the draft for a long time leading up to it, and with the Suns having 24 or fewer wins in three straight seasons, they were just trying to do something right and not mess up again. They had just missed on an international prospect in Dragan Bender, who they selected with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2016 draft.
While it is easy to look back now, the Suns did end up making the 2021 NBA Finals in only Ayton’s third season in the league. At this point, the Mavericks had been knocked out in the first round in two straight seasons, so people were arguing then that Ayton was the right pick.
However, Doncic then led the Mavs to upset the Suns in the second round of the NBA playoffs in 2022. Lacking a star next to Doncic, the Mavs traded for Kyrie Irving in 2023, but ended up missing the playoffs entirely.
The Suns once again lost in the second round to the eventual-champion Denver Nuggets in 2023, but Ayton’s character concerns became greater than ever that season.
Phoenix ultimately traded Ayton on Sept. 27, 2023, solidifying the case that no matter what Doncic did from that point on, he was the better draft pick.
Now, Doncic has more than proven in Ayton’s first season away from Phoenix that there is no doubt at all he is the better player and has made the Mavs a better team.
You could play the “what if” game even more in this draft with these two teams. The Suns needed a point guard, as they did almost every position alongside Devin Booker, so they selected French guard Elie Okobo with the No. 31 pick, who obviously did not pan out. Just two picks later, the Mavs drafted 2023-24 All-NBA Second Team guard Jalen Brunson at No. 33.
The Suns would find their answer at point guard just three seasons later in Chris Paul, and as soon as they did so, they went to the NBA Finals the first season with him. Phoenix was able to build a team around the core of Booker, Ayton and later Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson quicker than the Mavs did around Doncic.
But now it is clear that Dallas will have a championship window with the 25-year-old Doncic whenever they choose to put the right pieces around him, and the Mavs seem to have finally found the formula this season.
For the Suns, their team is and has been clearly centered around Booker, but they still struggle to find the right pieces around him to bring the franchise their first NBA championship. Ayton was a part of the team that got them arguably as close as they have ever been, but never the central figure.
Doncic, a five-time All-NBA First Team member (in six NBA seasons), has not reached the Finals yet, but it is very conclusive that there is a massive gap between him and Ayton in terms of the players they panned out to be.
What the Suns Could Have Been if They Drafted Doncic
When talking about championship windows, Doncic and Booker would have had a seemingly never-ending window that could be compared to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s with the Boston Celtics.
The Suns currently have such a small window with a 35-year-old Kevin Durant and 30-year-old Bradley Beal around Booker and immense pressure to get it right as soon as possible, but they would have had all the time to get it right around Doncic and Booker.
The Celtics now have a historically good team around Tatum and Brown, but it took them going to five of the last seven conference finals to figure out this roster.
The only time the Suns have made the conference finals in this period is in 2021 and never since. Now, Booker is the only one left from this team.
Dallas, meanwhile, has now made it to the conference finals two of the last three years building around only Doncic. The Suns have not made it out of the second round in this span.
While you could argue the Suns built a solid team through the draft around Booker with Ayton, Bridges and Johnson, they never found the longterm co-star they could have had, which they had plenty of opportunities to do so given their poor finishes and high draft picks in the few years after Booker was drafted.
Now, there is immense pressure for them to find this co-star or key pieces quickly, who they have currently chosen as Durant and Beal.
Once again, the Suns could look at the Mavs for the answer to this situation and see how it did not work with Irving in Year 1, but now here they are. Doncic did not end up getting his co-star through the draft either, but Dallas did find a very solid role player in Dereck Lively with the No. 12 pick last summer.
The problem for Phoenix is that it does not have the financial flexibility to acquire the pieces that Dallas did, like Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington, because Booker, Durant and Beal are set to make $150 million combined next season and the Suns as a team are projected to have the highest payroll in NBA history, severely limiting the moves they can make.
The Suns do have the No. 22 pick, so we will see if they try to get a player like Lively or trade it, like they have indicated they are interested in doing.
Can Phoenix replicate the Mavs success through continuity next season or will Suns fans always look back to thinking about the big “what if” the team drafted Doncic?
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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau
