New Look Skinny Luka Doncic Made EuroBasket History By Becoming Just The 5th Player Ever To Record A Triple Double

NurPhoto. Getty Images.

Look, I know most people are still riding high off the start of college football yesterday, but don't let that distract you from the fact that we're also right in the middle of the 2025 EuroBasket tournament. For those of us who are itching for the basketball season to start, this tournament has been a godsend. Hoops during the day, NBA stars doing some insane shit like Lauri Markkanen scoring 40+ points in 23 minutes, Giannis destroying everything in his path, Jokic being up to his old tricks and making mind-bending passes 

it's all been awesome so far. Given we're just under 3 weeks from things getting started in the NBA season, the EuroBasket tournament has been the perfect appetizer. 

If you've been reading my blogs for the last 10+ years, then you know I am and forever will be a sucker for witnessing history. I don't care who it is, if you do some cool shit that is extremely rare on a basketball court, I'm in. Our latest example comes via the new look Skinny Luka Doncic, who had himself quite the performance today for Slovenia

Admittedly, I did think things were getting a little out of hand when it came to this new look Luka. Like we get it, he finally accepted that he was fat and out of shape and then spent his summer committing to slimming down. I'm not sure that needed a whole media tour and whatnot, but given that he's now a Laker, I guess that should have been expected. 

What I was interested in seeing is just how this would translate to the court. Given Luka was already a generational offensive player while being fat at shit, I was curious to see what a slimmer, more agile Luka might look like. If he now has better conditioning, maybe that would help his defensive effort? Looking good is fine, but it actually has to translate to the court, and the defensive end specifically, for any of this to matter.

And while we are still TBD with that when it comes to NBA competition, I'd be lying if I said Luka didn't look awesome during his appearances so far at EuroBasket. Credit to me for putting my extreme anti-Lakers bias aside and admitting that

Yesterday, there was his dominant performance against France

and now today, we have him making EuroBasket history by becoming the 5th player ever to record a triple double. 

I have to be honest, I was a little shocked this hasn't happened more often. I would have bet anything that guys like Jokic or Giannis would have done this, yet that isn't the case. In the history of EuroBasket, only these players had accomplished this feat before Luka today: Stojko Vrankovic, Toni Kukoč, Rareș Mandache and Mateusz Ponitk.

Do I have any idea who any of those players are outside of Toni Kukoc? Nope. But considering the EuroBasket tournament has been around since 1935, I'd say it's pretty insane that this is something that's only happened now 5 times in their history. So even though I despise the Lakers with every fiber of my being and it makes me physically ill to praise any of their players, I do have to acknowledge how dominant Luka has been so far and how good he's looked now that he's in shape.

Now, I think we can all agree things will look MUCH different come October in terms of the competition, so the jury is still out if this new look Luka will matter when it comes to the Lakers' standing in the West. We know he's an unstoppable offensive force no matter what shape he's in, but if there's still a pretty high quit level when it comes to his defensive effort, it won't really matter how skinny Luka is. There are still plenty of questions about how a Luka/Reaves backcourt can work defensively, especially when LeBron will probably be checked out defensively here and there. Last year the excuse was he was just fat and out of shape, so we'll see if things look any different this time around.

But so far? I'd say new look Luka is performing about as good as you could want as a Lakers fan.