© Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Why Dallas Mavs' Superstar Luka Doncic Deserves to Win His First NBA MVP Award
The regular season is coming to a close, and the Dallas Mavericks are on the cusp of winning 50 games while also challenging for home-court advantage in the West. Luka Doncic, who is averaging numbers never before averaged by an NBA player in one season, deserves to be MVP.
As the NBA regular season comes to a close, the MVP race is heating up with Denver Nuggets' Niloka Jokic, Oklahoma City Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas Mavericks' Luka Doncic widely considered as being the three finalists.
All three players have had spectacular years and are worthy of being in this prestigious conversation, but we believe if voters will pay close attention to what Doncic has been able to accomplish this season, they will find that he is truly the player who deserves to win MVP honors.
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Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
In 66 games, Doncic is averaging a 33.9 points (No. 1 in the league), 9.2 rebounds (No. 15 in the league and the only non-center in that top 15) and 9.8 assists (No. 2 in the league) while shooting 48.9 percent overall and career-highs 38.1 percent from deep and 78.1 percent from the free-throw line. No other player in league history has ever averaged at least 33 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in a single season, but Doncic is about to officially become the first.
Although the Nuggets (53-23) and Thunder (52-24) have better records than the Mavs (45-30), Doncic shouldn't be penalized for a seven or eight game win difference just because his team went through several key injuries in the first half of the season. The Nuggets and Thunder have had a lot of starting lineup stability throughout the season as well – they rank No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in most minutes played together this season. The Mavs' current starting five, on the other hand, has only had two months to figure things out after the trade additions of Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington.
That Doncic has been able to be the constant stabilizing force for Dallas through all the injuries and roster changes is a testiment to just how valuable he is to his team. As the Mavs prepare to take on the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night – the team Doncic dropped a career-high 73 points on in January – they have sole possession of the No. 5 seed in the West and sit just two games back of the Los Angeles Clippers in the loss column for the No. 4 seed and home-court advantage.
The Mavs still have to finish off the season strong to keep from giving voters reasons to hesitate, but if they finish with 50+ wins and a top-five seed in the stacked West after all they've had to navigate through this season, it's hard for us to see how Doncic wouldn't be considered the favorite to win his first MVP ahead of what he also hopes to be a long playoff run.
If voters have a hard time pushing Doncic ahead of his good friend Jokic, who has already won two league MVP awards, perhaps they should listen to what the NBA champion had to say last month as the Mavs went on to defeat the Nuggets 107-105 in Dallas.
"I think he deserves the MVP, 100 percent," Jokic said of Doncic. "But it's not my decision, to be honest."
