Luka Doncic praised by Warriors, Steph Curry shares postgame message

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The Warriors have now gotten three looks at Mavericks rookie Luka Doncic, and the defending champs are impressed.

Really, really impressed.

"He's unbelievable," Curry told reporters in Dallas after the game. "You can tell he's just experienced in terms of playing high-level basketball. A guy that's always at his own pace. I'm sure he had heard all the doubters and people talking about his game who really didn't know much about him, and he's made himself known for sure. It's fun to watch in terms of the future of the league."

Doncic finished with a team-high 26 points in the Warriors' 119-114 win. He also grabbed six rebounds and dished out five assists. In three games against the Warriors, the 19-year-old Slovenian is averaging 23 points, six rebounds, and five assists.

As of last Thursday, Doncic is second in NBA All-Star Game voting among Western Conference frontcourt players, trailing only Lakers superstar LeBron James.

Warriors star Kevin Durant trailed Doncic by more than 500,000 votes as of the last count.

"I don't know if he's an All-Star with how the numbers work, but he's an All-Star player," Draymond Green told reporters. "So I don't know if he'll be an All-Star, per se, but he's definitely an All-Star talent -- that's for damn sure."

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Unless Durant makes a late push in voting, he could come off the bench in favor of Doncic in the NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 17 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"He's playing great ball," Durant said, according to ESPN. "Definitely for a 19-year-old to average 20 [points], six [rebounds] and five [assists] is definitely numbers you can look at and consider him for an All-Star selection, but there's so many great players out there at his position, so you never know, but just his poise for the game, his step-back 3 -- that's what he wants to get to most of the time. He's big and strong, can pass, can play in the pick-and-roll. He played in Europe last season. The rest of the rookie class played in college. So he's in the second-best league in the world learning how to play the game."

If Doncic were to make the All-Star Game, he would be the first rookie to play in the game since Blake Griffin in 2011. The last foreign-born player to make the All-Star Game was Yao Ming in 2003.

After the Warriors' win, Curry and Doncic embraced on the court and the two-time MVP had a message for the rookie.

"I said, 'I don't have to tell you anything,'" Curry told reporters. "'Just keep doing what you're doing.'"

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