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Slovenian basketball player playing for the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA, Luka Doncic, went third overall in the 2018 NBA draft. But that wasn't stopping the Mavericks from getting him even though they had the fifth pick in the draft.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was recently on "All The Smoke" with Matt Barnes and Steven Jackson and revealed how they were able to obtain Luka.
"We tried and tried and tried and it was like 15 minutes to go before our pick and I called the owner at Atlanta," Cuban said. "'I'm like you're not picking Luka and you know the guy you want so let's just do this deal because he'll be there for you."
When the Atlanta Hawks selected him 3rd overall, they offered the No. 5 pick and 2019 first-round pick for the then-19-year-old. The Hawks took the bait, and Dallas ended up selecting Trae Young out of the University of Oklahoma for Atlanta.
Mark Cuban knew Luka Doncic would be a star in the NBA
During the "All The Smoke" show the Dallas Mavericks owner revealed the moment he realized Doncic would shine on his team and in the NBA.
"When a kid's 13 and he goes to play in Europe against grown men, you hear about it, right? And then you kind of question it, like, 'Okay, it's Europe, you don't really know,'" Cuban said.
"And then the scouts were saying, 'Look, there's a 16-year-old, 17-year-old kid playing against OKC, and he's fearless.' And so then we started really paying attention, and it was interesting because our scouts really liked him, and our analytics guys loved him. The scouts said, 'Okay, they had eight number one,' and our numbers guys are like, 'This is the only superstar in the draft," Mark added.
Luka recently made a spectacular play against LeBron James, the Slovenian made an improbable pass between the NBA legend's legs in the Mavericks' win over the Lakers. The win puts the Mavericks in fourth place in the Western Conference standings, while the Lakers are in seventh place.