Luka Doncic has not always received as much respect as he deserves throughout his NBA career. However, that is beginning to change.
Doncic led the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals despite battling injury trouble this past season. Now, Doncic is receiving MVP love from ESPN, as he is the favorite to win the award according to ESPN experts.
ESPN conducted a vote of its NBA experts for multiple award predictions, including the MVP. Doncic received 48 percent of all first place votes. Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards and Giannis Antetokounmpo rounded out the top five in that order.
In all reality, any one of the aforementioned players could win the NBA MVP Award during the 2024-25 campaign. Even other stars such as Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid and Kevin Durant could realistically make MVP pursuits during the upcoming season. But at 25 years old and already a superstar, Doncic appears to be poised to make the jump.
Doncic had a serious MVP case last season. He led the league with 33.9 points per game on 48.7 percent field goal and 38.2 percent three-point shooting. Doncic’s improvement from beyond the arc helped him to expand his all-around offensive attack.
Of course, Luka found ways to contribute aside from scoring as well. He recorded 9.2 rebounds, 9.8 assists and 1.4 steals per contest. The Mavs dealt with a number of injury concerns, but still finished fifth overall in the Western Conference. Yet, Doncic ultimately finished just third in MVP voting.
That is how things have gone for Doncic at times in his career. He sometimes gets overlooked which has led some to believe that Luka is underrated, which is truly incredible since he has a legitimate argument to be the best player in the entire league.
Luka was called out for his defensive effort by many in the NBA Finals. Many of the critics clearly did not watch the Mavs throughout the regular season, though. By the time they saw Doncic on the defensive end of the floor in June, he was at the end of a long season and battling various injuries. With that being said, he still led the offense.
“I think when you look at today’s athlete, the game of sport is not to be perfect,” Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd said in June while responding to the criticism of Doncic’s defense. “It’s just, you know, to win. And when you look at what’s come out here in the last day or so, if you’ve watched the Mavs, Luka has improved his defense. But we are asking him, or some are asking him, to be a shutdown defender. Well, he’s never been on an All-Defensive Team, but he’s been on five All-Pro Teams, first team. So that means he’s one of the top five players in the world, and he’s playing the game the right way where he can find open guys.
“But when you’re on the biggest stage, there’s got to be — someone’s got to poke a hole. This will only make the great ones better. When you look at, we talked about it yesterday, with LeBron, Michael, the greats, the G.O.A.T.s, they all were poked at and they came back stronger and better.”
Luka Doncic impacts winning. Whether he is a good defender or not, the fact of the matter is that Doncic understands what it takes to lead his team to victories. There are not many 25-year-olds in the NBA who can say they have led their team to two Western Conference Finals and one NBA Finals.
Again, Doncic probably could have won the award in 2023-24. If the Mavericks finish as a top-four seed and Doncic produces similar numbers, he will win the MVP. Even if Luka’s numbers regress a little bit, Doncic should still be in the driver’s seat for the award if the Mavs can finish at or near the top of the Western Conference.
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