Coming off an NBA Finals appearance and his best statistical season as a pro, Luka Doncic is poised to win his first NBA Most Valuable Player Award during the 2024-25 season.
Doncic averaged 33.9 points, 9.8 assists, and 9.2 rebounds per game last season. He led the league in scoring, finished second in assists, and was inside the top fifteen in rebounds.
Those numbers would usually make a player a lock for MVP, but he managed to finish third behind Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. His overall numbers were better than the two players he finished behind, yet he only got four first-place votes compared to Jokic's 79.
The two things working against Doncic last season were that his team finished fifth in the Western Conference standings, and he is often viewed as a negative on the defensive end.
The thing is, his team ended up advancing further than Jokic's Nuggets or Gilgeous-Alexander's Thunder, and during the Mavericks postseason run, Doncic displayed a heightened level of defensive intensity that we are not used to seeing.
"Sitting there courtside, you could really watch all those little things that make a great defender. He really decided that he was going to focus on being aggressive defensively, and the numbers are pretty crazy. Clippers' players were 2-17 when Luka was the primary defender," said Rachel Nichols after Dallas advanced in the first round.
Neither of the MVP candidates ahead of him is regarded as an All-NBA defensive player, and the West is always so competitive that the difference between first and eighth place last year was only a ten-game gap.
Next season, voters will take into account that Doncic has shown the ability to defend when the level of competition rises and that he is fresh off of winning the NBA Western Conference Finals MVP Award.
If he puts up a similar stat line and stays healthy for the entirety of the regular season, Luka Doncic will win MVP.
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