Luka Doncic and Slovenia Struggle at Eurobasket, but a Key Teammate Is Learning

This summer's Eurobasket surprisingly features some major NBA names. Victor Wembanyama is out for France, but Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, and, of course, Luka Doncic are all representing their countries and hunting for the gold medal. While Antetokounmpo is flanked by a squad of overseas professionals, and Jokic a mix of NBA players and overseas pros, Doncic and Slovenia still largely scrape the bottom of the barrel for surrounding talent.

That's no disrespect to this Slovenian squad, who still bring a number of talented professionals to the table who have proven capable of helping Doncic win big games over the past few summers - and he has let them down before as well. But with a loss to France and then Poland in the group stage, this is shaping up to be a difficult summer for Slovenia, not a glorious one. The Poland loss looks more like an outlier thanks to former Toronto Raptors guard Jordan Loyd dropping 32 points, but Doncic dropped 34, and Slovenia couldn't generate enough offense to win this one.

While Slovenia's summer may be slipping away from them, this won't all be for nothing. Doncic is only 26 years old, and sitting on the bench and taking this entire experience in is 19-year-old guard Mark Padjen. Padjen dominated at the FIBA U19 World Cup earlier this summer and earned himself a call-up to the senior squad. In a game against Germany at the U19 World Cup, he finished with 23 points and five assists on 8-of-16 shooting from the field and 6-of-8 shooting from deep.