2019 NBA Draft Prospects: Luguentz Dort and his unconventional rise to being a possible lottery pick

2019 NBA Draft Prospects: Luguentz Dort and his unconventional rise to being a possible lottery pick
By Sam Vecenie
Dec 18, 2018

LOS ANGELES — The Canadian basketball explosion has been one of the most important developmental stories within basketball over the last decade. From first-overall picks Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett to up-and-coming stars like Jamal Murray and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the nation to the north of the United States has seen an incredible influx of elite-level talent into the game’s top level. Fourteen Canadians currently occupy NBA rosters, and with the way the youth system in the country has continued to churn out great players, it’s likely that number will grow in the coming years.

Still, it’s worth noting that a majority of those players — particularly at the highest levels — have come from the English-speaking portion of the country. However, Quebec, despite being the second-most populous province of Canada, has not really seen this boom reach its borders. Currently, only Khem Birch and Chris Boucher are in the NBA.

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According to the extensive RealGM database, only seven players from Quebec have ever made the NBA, with only three being first round picks. None of those first round picks have come since Haitian-born Samuel Dalembert — only tangentially from Quebec by virtue of going to high school in Montreal — was picked 26th overall in 2001. The highest-selected player from Montreal? Bill Wennington, who went 16th overall in 1981.

All of that has a real chance to change in 2019. Arizona State guard Luguentz Dort was a five-star prospect entering college, with NBA executives having kept tabs on him for the last few years. However, the start to his freshman season with the Sun Devils has placed him in legitimate lottery discussions as we head into the new year and conference play. He’s averaging 19.8 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists over their first 10 games while leading Bobby Hurley and company back into the top-25, only the second time they’ve been ranked in back-to-back seasons since 1982.

Cooler than that, though, is the story of how Dort ended up at this stage, with a smile on his face everywhere except on the basketball court.

Getting to know Luguentz Dort

The son of Haitian immigrants who moved to Canada in their early 20s, Dort, who goes by Lu, was born and raised in Montreal with five siblings, of which he was the second-youngest. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Quebec hasn’t exactly been a basketball hotbed, that the sport wasn’t his first. From the time he was four until he turned about 11, he played soccer, where he was a goalkeeper.

“I was good,” Dort told The Athletic with the trademark smile that one quickly comes to associate with him. “I was real good. But all of my friends started playing basketball. I was the only one of my friends playing soccer. So I started playing basketball, and I saw it was a lot more fun than playing soccer. Being at goalkeeper, it was just more fun.”

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It’s funny to imagine a different world where Dort develops into a world-class goalkeeper trying to make Major League Soccer, but it wasn’t to be. Early in his basketball career, Dort tried to make an impact in whatever way he could. Largely, those remnants are still evident in his game. On offense, he found early success as a driver due to his quickness and strength. And unsurprisingly for a past goalie, he understood that defense was an essential part of the game and something that could get him on the floor quickly. His philosophy on defense still impacts his game to this day.

“Even if you are an average player, if you are able to guard somebody and play defense, it’ll open up your options,” Dort said. “One time, I was in a camp and they didn’t know about me. I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to show them how I play defense on the ball so they give me the chance to play, and then I’ll show them I can play on offense.’

“I started picking up men full-court, and coaches started to get more confidence in me, and that’s how they let me play. It was a way for me to get opportunities on offense. I’m fast enough, and athletic enough, and know how to move my feet well. Oh, and I like getting steals and going to the rim and dunk the ball. It’s something I really took pride in.”

Ultimately, that ended up with Dort — much like many French Canadians before him — getting offers to come to America and play in high school. For his sophomore year, he decided to do just that and ended up at Arlington Country Day in Florida. But there was one issue: Dort couldn’t speak English. His family spoke French and Creole, with no English. Because his parents didn’t go to an English-speaking school, by law he was forced to attend a French school in the province. He had next-to-no practical familiarity with the language he’d be speaking on a day-to-day basis. When his Brookwood Elite AAU team would come to America in those days, he’d need to point at the menu in order to let people know what he wanted to eat.

So Dort had to get to work. Before he went down to Florida, he watched the entire run of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Then, after enjoying it, he watched it all over again.

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“It was funny, and it helped me understand the funny slang in English,” Dort said. “That’s the show that really helped me, the one that really helped my English get better.”

Still, the language barrier was the toughest part of his transition to America. He had a working understanding of basketball terms, but off the floor was still a struggle. He had someone around who could help him translate French to English in a pinch, but he chose to have an English-speaking roommate in order to acclimate. Dort says that for most of that first year, he mostly only spoke to people when he was on the basketball floor. In large part, he kept to himself and tried to figure things out. Looking back now, though, he realizes how lucky he was to get the opportunity and how much those around him assisted him in learning the language.

“The difference between Montreal and the U.S. is that if you produce and help the team in the U.S., people are willing to help you and care about you,” Dort said. “If not, sometimes they don’t care about you. The fact that I was good, I had a guy helping me a lot. He got my English a lot better.”

Dort transferred to Conrad Academy in Florida for his junior year when his coach at Arlington, Shaun Wiseman, took that job. But he only ended up staying there for a year, as he did his final season at Athlete Institute in Ontario for his final year. People around him advised this in order to make sure that Dort would get all of the academic credits he needed to qualify for college in 2018. Transferring also allowed for his parents to drive to see him play instead of having to fly to the other end of the continent. During this time, he also won the MVP of the BioSteel  All-Canadian game twice in a row, establishing himself among the elite prospects in the country. Early in that senior year in Ontario, Dort decided on Arizona State over Baylor and Oregon after visiting both schools, something that just months prior seemed unlikely. At first, he didn’t really like it. But things changed as time wore on.

“When I first got ASU in my head, I was going to be a junior and I didn’t feel like ASU was big enough for me,” Dort said. “But as going into my senior year, I could see it was the best fit. They had three guards that left, and the coaching staff, I could tell what they were trying to build. I just felt like it would be the best spot. I know coach Hurley and coach Anthony Coleman, we already had a good relationship.”

“He connected with the coaching staff,” Joey McKitterick, his AAU coach with Brookwood Elite, said. “He went to visit early in the year, and wasn’t in love with what he saw. But he loved coach Hurley. He really wants to learn how to play the point guard position, and it’s hard to do better than Hurley for that.”

All of this just happened to coincide with a return to relevance for the Sun Devils, with Hurley and the coaching staff riding senior guards Tra Holder and Shannon Evans into an early top-five ranking nationally last season. Certainly, Dort saw the vision that the staff had, but he was a bit surprised by how quickly it has all come together.

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A unique personality

It’s important to understand all of that backstory and all of the things he’s gone through when trying to figure out Dort the person. Lu, the competitor and Lu, the person are two drastically different things.

When you watch Dort on television, the first thing that comes across is his competitiveness. Simply put, he is just an absolute beast out on the floor. He fights for every inch, claws for every loose ball. His motor never stops running. And he just always wants to win. A lot of people say they want to win, but Dort embodies it. He will absolutely try to rip your heart out on the basketball floor if you give him the chance.

“He’s just a fierce competitor,” McKitterick said. “He just found a way to win games. From the time he was 13 til the time he was 17, he lost six total (AAU) games over the course of five summers. He has that edge, that fire that burns inside.”

Dort isn’t sure he can exactly pinpoint when this all started, but his parents have always told him that it’s been a part of who he is. Even when he’d play in the backyard with his brothers and race them, he’d want badly to come in first. They were older, so they would often win. But the remnants of those defeats resulted in Dort working all the harder, and becoming an even better athlete. If there’s something even remotely competitive to what you’re doing, expect that he’s taking it that way and trying to best you.

“I always want to be the first, but if I know I can’t be first, I want to beat somebody I know I can beat,” Dort says with a laugh. “Like in class, I know I’m not the smartest guy, but I’m not trying to be the dumbest guy in class. Like in video games, when I lose, I’m actually mad for real. I don’t know why I’m like this, I just like to compete.”

Video games present a great test of that. Dort loves to play FIFA, where he’ll play with Paris Saint-Germain. He reckons he’s pretty good at it, too. Or at least he thought he was, until he met fellow Arizona State freshman Elias Valtonen.

“I thought I was good,” Dort said. “But when I played him, damn. He kicked my ass. He kicked my ass. I was like ‘what are y’all doing overseas, you playing that game every day?’ I was surprised. He actually kicked my ass. I couldn’t even play.”

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All of this is good-natured, and we laughed while talking about it in Los Angeles. But this comes after Dort played Valtonen something like a dozen times in FIFA, and Dort kept coming away empty against his Finnish teammate. Valtonen would play with teams that Dort had never even heard of, and still beat him while he had Kylian Mbappe and Neymar running down the wings with blinding pixelated speed. Eventually though, Dort cracked the code and picked up the win. And from there, he was done.

“He beat me more than 10 times,” Dort recalls. “We played a lot. But just because I wanted to beat him, I did one time. Then I was out.”

Of course, that above description of my conversation with Dort is essential to who he is, too. Legitimately, Dort is just a fun kid who laughs constantly, and doesn’t take things personally. Those around him at Arizona State say he’s just a genuine guy who loves to be around his teammates.

“Most kids that play that way on the court, they’re kind of a dick off of it,” McKitterick said. “That’s just kind of the way it is. One is connected to the other. As opposed to this kid, who is the nicest, humblest kid.”

There is an emotional intelligence there, a person who can switch it on and off at the right times. It’s easy to see him being the kind of kid who does well in interviews with NBA teams, as most people will likely connect well to the way that he should fit in a variety of different environments. He’s not necessarily the emotional leader of the Sun Devils as a freshman — that falls on boisterous senior Zylan Cheatham’s shoulders. But he’s certainly a culture builder who goes about putting in the work every day. Simply put, he’s the kind of guy who will just make it work wherever he is, and elevate those around him.

Breaking down his defensive game

The competitiveness that fuels Dort’s personality obviously plays a critical role in evaluating his game. Dort’s second-half performances have been monstrous for the Sun Devils. He scored 26 second-half and overtime points against Cal State Fullerton in the opener, then posted 19 in the second stanza later that month in a tight game against Utah State. His 17 second half points against Nevada were more than the rest of his team could muster combined. Simply put, the guy just keeps running when others slow down.

In large part, the on-ball defensive energy he plays with fuels that. To me, this is Dort’s most translatable NBA skill early on. He still picks up guys 90 feet away from the basket like he did early in his basketball career, and pesters them up and down the floor. His theory is that he can outrun and outwork them, and tire them out later in games. That’s where he can do his best damage. And at 6-4, with a 6-foot-9 wingspan and a strong, well-proportioned 215 pound frame with a thick chest and strong legs, thus far that strategy has played itself out well.

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He drops his hips to change direction well on that end, and utilizes his strength to his advantage. It’s basically impossible to plow through him. His tank is impressive for a 19-year-old with such a stout frame, as he can run forever on that end. He’s also aggressive and disruptive with his hands, leading to turnovers and run-outs going the other way for Arizona State. Again, here we have Dort allowing his defense to lead into more offense.

“I’m going to see how skilled you are, and if I feel like I can pressure you to the point that you will lose the ball, I will,” Dort said. “If I can tell that you are not comfortable with your dribble, I will take your dribble and pick you up full court. I know I can get steals and I know that he will be tired bringing the ball up.”

Still, Dort’s overall defensive game is far from perfect and will need some technical work once he gets to the NBA. It would be fair to say he has significant struggles away from the ball, in large part due to the aggressiveness that powers his game. He hasn’t yet hit the balance of helping out his teammates when they get beat while also respecting his own man’s skills.

The best example of this came against Utah State, when Hurley matched up Dort with one of the more underrated players in the country, Sam Merrill. Merrill is also currently averaging over 20 points per game, but he gets his points through pristine off-ball movement and one of the best jump shots in all of college basketball. Over 372 3-point attempts through his career, Merrill has hit 45.2 percent. Despite that scouting report, Dort often found himself sinking far too deep into the lane, allowing the one guy in college basketball you don’t want to give a clean catch-and-shoot opportunity to repeated looks.

As you see above, he watches the ball quite a bit and naturally allows himself to get baited into helping too far. NBA shooters will take advantage of that and just naturally drift away from him without noticing, as Merrill showed. It’s a fixable problem, but it’s definitely a glaring one right now. He’s just starting to watch tape regularly after finding that he didn’t need to early on in his prep career. As he does that and as he works with coaches who game plan regularly with him on a matchup-by-matchup basis, he’ll start to learn more intricacies of defense. Given his overall work level and competitiveness, it’s easy to see him becoming an all-around good defender. But teams will need to test him and his ability to learn schematic knowledge within the interview process.

Breaking down his offensive game

That desire to learn to play the point guard has been granted by Hurley, and so far the results have been largely positive for his development. Dort is certainly not a natural point guard — distribution isn’t natural for him, he’s still mostly a scorer — but he’s displayed the ability to play with a ball-screen and break down a defense off the dribble.

His skills as a ball-handler have improved since his prep days, with his overall handle tightening. He keeps crossovers low to the ground, and does a pretty good job of changing speeds in order to get past defenders. His creativity is a lot better than what it used to be. With such a thick frame, he doesn’t really change direction super well at high speed. But he also doesn’t necessarily have to have that in his game due to the strength throughout his body. Defenders basically bounce off of him going to the basket. He’s able to absorb contact and act like nothing has happened.

“I don’t really realize it on the floor,” Dort said about his ability to create separation using his frame. “It’s when I watch myself after. Sometimes, I’ll be hitting someone going to the rim with my shoulder, and I see what happens. I don’t realize how hard I do it in the game, but when I see it on film, I’ll give guys what I think is a little hit, and I’ll see that he felt it.”

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His body control on the ground is also underrated for someone who gets downhill as quickly as he does. He can slow himself down pretty quickly, and maneuver around the trees inside. As seen above, it can sometimes lead to spectacular finishes around the basket and terrific moves out in space. However, all too often he’ll make the decision to try and bull rush his way into the paint and draw contact.

The good news for Dort is that it has worked to the tune of 8.6 free throw attempts per game, which is sixth in the nation and tops among all high-major players. The bad news is that his finishing at the basket has suffered, as he’s only made 46 percent of his halfcourt shots at the basket, good for just the 25th percentile nationally. Mix in that he’s only made 64 percent of his foul shots, and his overall efficiency has taken a bit of a hit to the tune of a relatively below-average 52.1 true-shooting percentage. Still, that’s largely a product of the role Arizona State has him in. He’s the Sun Devils’ best threat to create anything off the dribble and at the end of shot clocks. That’s not his best role at the next level.

But one other area where Dort has taken a bit of a leap is in navigating defenders who go under ball-screens. Dort has hit about 35 percent of his 3-point attempts, a relatively high number for a guy who takes a majority of his jumpers off the dribble. It used to be that the best bet for defender him was to simply go under screens and cut him off before he got too much of a head of steam going toward the basket. Now, Dort’s improved jumper has allowed him to take advantage of the space afforded to him by defenders who still utilize that scouting report.

His jumper has simplified in a really positive way. It’s a one-motion jumper set shot that allows him to get into it easily, and keep his mechanics sound. His release sometimes leads to a bit more arc on the ball than you’d like to see, and he’ll sometimes go with an unfinished look on his follow through. Also, once he gets into his jumper, his mind is made up. Because it’s not a lightning quick load and release, he’ll get contested more often that you’d like. He’s got some work to do in terms of continuing to get that consistent release in addition to speeding it up, but there’s real potential for him to be an average NBA jump shooter with time. That slow release and current focus on trying to get comfortable with his mechanics leads to him being a bit sloppy when attacking closeouts. But Arizona State doesn’t really have him in a role often where he’s trying to create from a spot-up situation, so it’s hard to say how comfortable he is with this right now.

The other thing that will help his jump shot will be that, when he plays off-ball, defenders will have to respect his timing when making back-cuts toward the basket. He’s a really smart diver toward the rim, using his speed and reactivity to get easy baskets. That same desire to play hard that has been emphasized throughout this story tends to show up when he’s moving away from the ball.

Overall evaluation

Despite the unconventional trajectory of his pathway, Dort has established himself as a top-20 prospect in this draft, with a chance to go to in the lottery when it’s all said and done. His defensive potential, ball-handling ability, and potential to shoot it when mixed with his competitiveness make him an interesting two-way role player with potential to become a starter as a combo guard in the right situation. There’s a lot of Marcus Smart in his game, and Smart has become a legit starting-quality player whose team is consistently better with him on the floor. He doesn’t quite have the vision Smart does, but he’s a better shooter. None of these comparisons ever end up being perfect, but that’s the kind of role it’s easy to envision him in: a combo guard who plays both ends at a strong level.

It’s also worth mentioning that Dort is not the kind of kid you want to bet against. His teams just simply do not tend to lose often, and it’s due in large part to his presence. Coaches will love having him around because he consistently does the right things on the floor while also making plays happen. He has the right mentality to take a step back and just do what the team needs of him. In a draft where scouts are struggling to find guys that they truly feel confident in producing at the next level, Dort is the kind of guy an executive can feel safe will at least work as hard as possible to reach his ceiling. Given the rest of his skill set, that’s enough for him to become the next in what has been a relatively slow line of French Canadians to reach the NBA.

(Photo:  Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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Sam Vecenie

Sam Vecenie covers the NBA Draft, college basketball and the NBA for The Athletic. His podcast, the Game Theory Podcast, is regularly ranked among the top podcasts on iTunes. Previously, he worked for CBS Sports, SB Nation, Sporting News, and Vice. Follow Sam on Twitter @Sam_Vecenie