Luka Dončić‘s Historic March Has Somehow Made the Anthony Davis Trade Look Even Worse for Mavs

The Lakers beat the Cavaliers 127-113 on Tuesday night. It was Los Angeles' fourth straight win and its 50th of the season. The Lakers went 15-2 in March and have a two game lead over the Nuggets for the No. 3 seed with a little over a week remaining in the regular season.

The main reason for this excellent run by the Lakers has been the play of Luka Dončić, who had 42 points and 12 assists against Cleveland. In the process of scoring all those points last night he completed one of the highest scoring months in NBA history and broke Kobe Bryant's Lakers record of 578 during March '06.

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After last night'a game coach JJ Redick said Dončić's March performance was "as good of a month as anybody that I can remember in modern NBA."

Luka did it in one fewer game than Kobe thanks to a one-game suspension stemming from his 16th technical foul, which meant he missed a game against a Wizards team that gave up 83 points to Bam Adebayo a few weeks ago. As I predicted, the suspension came at a perfectly fine time for Dončić and the Lakers as they beat Washington, 120-101.

Dončić averaged 37.5 points, eight rebounds and 7.4 assists in March and yes, there's somehow a way to make this incredible run look even worse for the Mavericks.

Luka scored more points in March than Anthony Davis scored in just over a calendar year in Dallas. In 29 games with the Mavericks, Davis scored 587 points. If it wasn't for the fact that he was part of the Luka Dončić trade it seems unlikely anyone would remember he even spent any time with the Mavericks.

Former teammate Rui Hachimura was recently shocked to see Davis on the Wizards’ bench in street clothes during the Lakers’ win over Washington. The main piece of the Dončić trade has essentially disappeared. A guy who averaged 25 and 10 in the NBA Finals six years ago has been relegated to a footnote in one of the most lopsided trades in sports history.

Meanwhile, Dončić is now leading the league in points per game, field goal attempts per game, free throw attempts per game and PER. Unsurprisingly, he's also No. 1 in usage rate. And he's fourth in assists per game, sixth in steals per game and 23rd in rebounding.

Dončić was asked if he wanted to make his case for MVP after beating the Cavs and basically declined, saying, "I've been playing pretty good. We've been winning. That's all I got to say."

The problem with letting his play do the talking is that there are so many great players having great seasons right now. The top four seeds in the Western Conference all feature a superstar having an all-time great season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, has been lights out again on the No. 1 seed Thunder. Nikola Jokić, a three-time winner, is about to become the first player to ever lead the NBA in rebounds and assists in the same season. Victor Wembanyama, who often defies explanation but did decide to make his own case for the award, just recorded a double-double in eight minutes.

The argument will continue after one or three of those players is robbed of the MVP, but no one can take away Luka's aesthetically pleasing 600 points in March. It's a nice round number that all future big scoring months can be measured against.

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