With just under five minutes to play in the first quarter of the Mavericks‘ Christmas Day matchup with the Suns, Luka Doncic casually cashed what officially went down as a 34-foot 3-pointer.
Whatever the exact distance, it was a bomb, and it put Doncic over the 10,000 career-point mark before he’s even reached 25 years old.
Only five other players have scored 10K points before their 25th birthday, and they are some of the best scorers to ever live: LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Tracy McGrady. The trio of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Devin Booker and Dwight Howard barely missed the mark, having achieved the feat within weeks of their 25th birthday,
At 24 years and 300 days, Doncic, per Elias Sports, is the sixth youngest player in history to enter the 10K club (the last player to do it at a younger age was Michael Jordan), and the seventh fastest in terms of games played at 358.
Among active players, nobody has reached 10K faster than Doncic, who did it in 10 fewer games than LeBron (368).
As soon as he hit the shot, Doncic immediately started jawing with Suns fans, who had taken to booing him whenever he touched the ball as he was busy lighting Phoenix up during a first quarter that saw him pour in 17 points (24 in the first half).
The man has been torturing the Suns since he and the Mavericks blew them right out of the playoffs with a 33-point shellacking in Game 7 of the 2022 Western Conference Semifinals.
The last time the Mavs and Suns played, Doncic and Devin Booker went nose to nose at the end of the game. Doncic’s potential game-tying floater had rimmed out, and he and Booker were going back and forth. They got double technicals.
Said Doncic of the exchange with Booker: “Next time, don’t wait ’til three seconds left to talk.”
Christmas was the “next time,” and Doncic, who had scored at least 30 points in 12 of his previous 13 games entering play in Phoenix, came out blazing.
This is not a guy you want to challenge to a duel. There’s not a player in the league that scores easier than Doncic, and that includes Booker and his teammate Kevin Durant.
Doncic can damn near get a bucket whenever he wants, and he’s certainly gotten a lot of them through the first 358 games of what it already a surefire Hall of Fame career.
