Luka Doncic is scoring at a pace few players in NBA history have matched. Through nine games, the Lakers star is averaging 38.5 points per game, 8.4 more than the league’s second-leading scorer, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, at 30.1. His latest 40-point night pushed him into company only one other Laker superstar has kept, Kobe Bryant. Now, even one of Doncic’s longtime critics is making that comparison.

Speaking on the Road Trippin’ podcast, Kendrick Perkins called Doncic the closest thing to Bryant among the league’s young stars, not because of how he plays, but because of how he thinks.

“He don’t give a damn who’s in front of him. It could be Giannis, it could be Bam, it could be the best wing defender in the league. Luka is going to tear your a– up. He’s the closest thing to Kobe, not game-wise, mentality-wise, out of all the young guys that I done seen.” The former NBA forward said on the latest edition of the Road Trippin’ podcast.

This is high praise coming from Perkins, someone who has constantly found the spotlight with his comments criticizing Doncic. Back in Dallas, he argued Doncic didn’t belong in the MVP conversation because the Mavericks weren’t near the top of the standings, and last season he left Doncic off his All-NBA First Team.

But even Perkins has had to give Doncic his due this season. After Doncic put up 52 points and 10 assists against the Utah Jazz in October, Perkins posted, “Luka with a cool 52 and 10 on the lord’s day.” Doncic replied with a simple “😎.”

Doncic also responded to the Kobe Bryant comparison. He did so after scoring 40 points in the Lakers’ 116-103 win over the Sacramento Kings.

“It’s a lot of honour,” Doncic said, per Spectrum SportsNet on X. “I think we all know who Kobe was, what he meant to everybody, especially basketball-wise; he was an idol for a lot of people, so it means a lot that I mentionm next to his name.”

The win also put him in Bryant’s company in the record books. With his sixth straight game of 35 points or more, Doncic joined Bryant and Elgin Baylor as the only Lakers ever to do it.

In his ninth NBA season, Doncic is on his way to averaging more than 30 points per game in four of them, after doing it in 2022-23, 2023-24 and last season, when he won the scoring title.

For context, in 20 seasons with the Lakers, even Bryant averaged more than 30 points only three times (30.0 in 2002-03, 35.4 in 2005-06 and 31.6 in 2006-07), according to StatMuse.

Doncic arrived in Los Angeles in February 2025, almost exactly five years after Bryant’s death in January 2020. He’s now in his second full season with the Lakers, and his admiration for Bryant has never been a secret. His profile picture on X is a photo of Bryant with his daughter, Gigi.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Doncic shared the advice Bryant gave him when they first met, just before his rookie season.

“I remember meeting him for the first time, before I started my NBA season. There was one thing he’d say, ‘Watch out, you’re European. They’re going to be after you,'” Doncic shared in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “He was right.”

With the run Doncic is currently on, it begs the question: will this be the year he finally wins his first MVP after coming agonizingly close in the past few seasons?
According to Perkins, the MVP should go to the player who puts up the individual numbers while also leading his team to a top position in its respective conference. So far, Doncic has both. The Lakers are 7-2 and second in the Western Conference. With 73 games still to play, the question is whether he can keep this up.