The NBA’s Most Unpredictable Job? Catching Passes From Luka Doncic.

Getty Images/Ringer illustration Playing next to the Dallas Mavericks' audacious superstar means learning to be ready at all times. "Whenever you're not expecting it, that's when the passes usually come," says P.J. Washington. Early in his Dallas Mavericks tenure, in a game he can barely remember, Derrick Jones Jr. found himself watching Luka Doncic attempt an incredible yet routine act. As Doncic prodded the defense and began to drive baseline, Jones rotated to the corner, as he'd done thousands of times in his eight-year career, just in case his teammate needed an outlet. The opposition collapsed on the Mavericks star, to the point that Jones, seeing no passing lanes, surmised his job was finished for the possession. Then, out of the crowd, the ball appeared, on its way toward Jones's shooting pocket, forcing the 27-year-old to scramble. "He threw a behind-the-back or behind-the-head pass to me," Jones remembers. "I ain't going to lie, I wasn't ready for it, wasn't expecting it, and I missed it." That sort of sequence has become a familiar initiation for anyone who enters Doncic's orbit. Since the Mavericks acquired him in a draft-day trade with Atlanta for Trae Young in 2018,...