“Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic checks in at No. 1 in our point-guard rankings, an easy decision considering the season he just had and the career’s worth of evidence we have on him.
“Doncic ended up third in the 2023-24 MVP vote, the highest finish of his career, after leading the league in scoring at 33.9 points per game to go with 9.2 rebounds, 9.8 assists, and 1.4 steals per contest. He did that on 48.7 percent shooting from the floor and 38.2 percent accuracy from three, the latter being a career-best rate for him.
The narrative throughout the 2023-24 season followed Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the MVP race despite video-game numbers from Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks. Jokic would take home his third MVP in the last four seasons but people like Shaquille O’Neal believed the award should have gone to the Thunder’s star and Doncic was left to a distant third-place finish.
There has been some revisionist history following the Mavs’ run to the NBA Finals. Doncic was awarded the ESPY for the NBA’s Best Player and is now gaining further recognition.
HoopsHype compiled a list of the 30 greatest point guards heading into next season and has Luka Doncic in first place in front of Gilgeous-Alexander. Here is what Frank Urbina of HoopsHype had to say of the Slovenian superstar.
“Doncic finished second league-wide in BPM and VORP and, post-trade deadline, had Dallas looking like a full-blown contender. That wound up being true, too, as Doncic led the Mavericks all the way to the NBA Finals through a crowded and tough Western Conference.
“All in all, the 25-year-old continues to somehow improve year over year, an even more impressive feat considering he’s coming off of five straight 1st Team All-NBA nods.
“For the record, the only players to make 1st Team All-NBA five years in a row since the year 2000 are Doncic, Lebron James, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, and Dwight Howard, putting Doncic is some very prestigious company. Out of that group, only Doncic and Howard have not or did not win MVP, and Howard made 1st Team All-NBA so many times in part due to how weak the center position was in the NBA at the time, so Doncic doing it in this loaded era and while so young is all the more notable.
“It would not be surprising in the least to see Doncic win the first MVP award of his career now that he has the right supporting cast around him.”
Mavs fans have known how great Doncic is since he was drafted as he has carried bad rosters to the playoffs and the conference finals. Now that he has a true co-star in Kyrie Irving, who is 11th on the list, and a great supporting cast, the recognition he deserves is finally coming his way.
Former Mavericks’ guard Jalen Brunson checks in third on the list, who has blossomed into a star since signing with New York.