NBA star Luka Dončić leads Slovenia into EuroBasket round of 16

NBA star Luka Dončić has taken Slovenia to the round of 16 of the 2025 EuroBasket as the team defeated Iceland 87:79 in a hard-won match on 2 September for their second win in four games in Group D.

The final game, against Israel on 4 September, will decide only which team from Group C they will encounter in the knockout stage, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

The win against never-say-die Iceland was expected but still came as a relief after a lacklustre warm-up stage and start to the competition.

Having lost four of its five warm-up games, admittedly against strong opponents such as Germany and Serbia, Slovenia lost the opening matches against Poland and France, though there were signs of their form improving .

The wins against Belgium and Iceland may not have been as convincing as hoped for, but served to consolidate and lift up the team ahead of the decisive stage of the tournament.

All eyes have been on Dončić, the new face of the Los Angeles Lakers and the only NBA player on the Slovenian bench, who has delivered some outstanding performances and as captain helped coach Aleksander Sekulić lift the team out of its warm-up funk.

He leads the tournament in scoring, averaging 31.3 points per game, and ranks second in assists behind Lithuania's Rokas Jokubaitis, and became only the fifth player in EuroBasket history to deliver a triple-double performance, against Belgium.

Dončić proved his mettle in the Iceland encounter as well. A game that started with him in foul trouble saw him finish with 26 points, seven rebounds and four assists, with Aleksej Nikolić adding another 17 points, Rok Radović nine and Alen Omić eight.

"I congratulate them on how they played today. It was undoubtedly their best performance in this championship," Sekulić said after the Iceland encounter. "It's nice to see that the other guys stepped up when Luka Dončić was struggling with personal fouls.