Luka Doncic is officially your 2019 Rookie of the Year. It’s an award he listed as a goal when the season began; it’s also an award that lost significance to him as the season progressed. “Obviously I want to win, but honestly I don’t care,” he told a European media outlet in April. Maybe he’s playing coy. Or maybe his season set his sights higher.
Doncic was undoubtedly the league’s best rookie this season, as I argued months ago. Trae Young had a spectacular year in his own right, just not equally so; he should feel no shame as a runner-up. But Doncic’s body of work over 72 games played as a 19-year-old rookie was more than just this season’s best performance by a first-year player. It’s one of the best ever.
There are two arbitrary “bests” that we can argue in this article: that Doncic had the best rookie season in Dallas Mavericks franchise history, and that Doncic had the best rookie season for a…
