Luka Dončić's MVP Race: Highlights, Triple-Doubles & NBA Domination

The 2024 NBA MVP race has been a wildly disputed one over the past couple of weeks

And in the eyes of most people, there are 5 players in contention for this award

I have set out to make a video on the case for each of these top 5 options

This is the 3rd of those videos. The controversial case for a Luka Doncic MVP

Before we get started, this video is going to be a little different. I set some ground rules in the past video about how this is the case for and not against

But Luka's case requires some nuance, so here's what we'll be doing. We will start with the positive reasons for why he should win the MVP

Then we will go into the things that are holding him back. And finally, we will end with what has to happen over the final 20 games of the regular season

for Luka to come out on top and win the MVP. It should be no news to you that Luka Doncic is putting on an offensive clinic this season

averaging 34.6 points per game, 9 rebounds, and 9.8 assists, all the while having a 57.7 effective

field goal percentage, a 62.3% true shooting percentage, and shooting 78.5% from the free

throw line. He's shooting a career high in three point percentage and also has a career high in

effective field goal, free throw, points per game, and assists. I don't think it's a stretch to say

he is the most talented offensive player on the planet right now. Joel Embiid is close as a score

if not just as good, and Jokic is close, if not just as good as a playmaker, but Luka can do both

almost better than anybody. Which got me thinking, how many times in NBA history has a player averaged

34 points, 9 rebounds, and 9 assists? The answer is none. If we take away rebounds, Tiny Archibald

in 1973 did average 34 points per game and 11.4 assists. And if we knock down the criteria to 34

six and six, James Harden achieved that feat twice in 2019 and 2020. If we were to knock down the

points to 30 points per game and eight rebounds and eight assists, that's only been done eight

times in NBA history. Once by Russell Westbrook in 2017, his MVP season. Once by Michael Jordan

in 1989 four times by oscar robertson throughout the 60s and twice by luca last season and this

season but if we then take their effective field goal percentages and true shooting and factor those into account luca tops that list of eight in both of those categories I really hope this is giving you a vibe for how special of a season Luka Doncic

is having offensively. As a matter of fact, tonight he just made NBA history with his six

straight game of 30 plus points and a triple double. Previously, the old record was held by

Russell Westbrook in 2017, and Luka against the Pistons tonight just broke that. But the Mavericks

only went 3-3 in those six games. We'll get to the Mavericks losing struggles in a second

but first I had to point out that ironically, two other MVP candidates are averaging 36-6 this

season, Giannis and SGA. And those two are shooting a higher effective field goal percentage

and true shooting percentage than Luka. I only bring that up because this has been an incredibly

special year for individual performances, making it all that tougher of a season to win the MVP

One massive bright spot from Luka this year is that he is absolutely destroying the short mid

range. Per Clean the Glass, the short mid range is identified as shots from four feet from the

basket to 14 feet. Luka is shooting 54% from that range, which is the best percentage for his

position in the NBA. But what may be even more impressive is his percentage he's shooting at the

rim. He's shooting 75% on 218 attempts, which is better than Nikola Jokic at 71%, better than SGA

at 70%, better than Jason Tatum at 71%, with only Giannis having a better rim field goal percentage

at 78%. And if we take a look at some all-in-one metrics, he is first in the entire NBA in

offensive LeBron, first in the entire NBA in offensive EPM, and second in offensive DPM by

Darko, which means he is truly having one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time. So the

question we have to ask ourselves is why is that not enough to win an MVP award? And there's two

reasons really. Number one, defense, and number two, winning. Let's start with defense. I'm not

going to sit here and pretend like I am a Luka hater who thinks he is unplayable on the defensive

end of the court. That's just not true if you're paying attention. However, he is pretty easily the

worst defender of the five contenders for MVP which in a race as close as this one can easily be the tiebreaker So let take a deeper look at Luka on the defensive end Over the course of the whole season and in relation to his own team

Luka is the fourth worst defender in defensive rating. But since February 1st, we have seen improvement

and he's moved himself to the middle of the pack. EPM has him at minus 0.4 defensive plus minus

which is good for a 54th percentile. LeBron has him at a minus .72 D LeBron, which is somewhere in the 20 to 30th percentile

and Darko has his defense ranked pretty poorly as well. After winning seven straight games, including five after the deadline

and being ranked as the best defense in the NBA for that seven-game span

Dallas has since gone 2-5 and has legitimately had the worst defense in the NBA during that span

Now, they did win tonight, which makes them 3-5, but we don't have the defensive rating yet for that game

Two of those most recent losses have been going around Twitter with this new stat from Synergy

that tracks defensive field goal percentage. In the Celtics loss, opponents scored 30 points on

Luka with a 73.3% field goal percentage, and against the Pacers, 32 opponent points on 76.5

from the field, and these have been used to say there's no way he can win the MVP

he's the worst defender in the world. But on the season, he's averaging a 49.4

defended field goal percentage. So while he's been pretty awful on defense over the past couple

games, he's been mediocre the course of the whole season, and we have to take those overall season

numbers into account. I really don't think he's the walking liability on defense that everyone

seems to say he is, but at the same time, he's not good. Like we said before, either way, he's the

only true minus defender on this contender list, which means that if we are going to make a case

for him to be the most valuable player, we have to prove that his offense is in a tier above every

other player on this list. And also find someone in MVP history that is a good comp. So let's take

a deeper look at Russell Westbrook in 2017. He averaged 31.6 points per game, 10.7 rebounds

and 10.4 assists. But he did so on 42.5% from the field and 47.6% effective field goal percentage

Luka is averaging three more points per game, one and a half less boards, and 0.6 less assists

but his efficiency is way better than Russ's at 49.6% from the field and 57.7% from the field

The problem is Russ MVP was controversial at the time and Luka has to beat out the other candidates not 2017 Russell Westbrook so in my opinion if you want to give the MVP award to a player like Luka who averaging

35 9 and 9 instead of a player like Giannis who's averaging 30 11 and 6 or a player like Shea who's

averaging 31 6 and 5 or even Jokic the favorite who's averaging 25.9 12.3 and 9 with a better

true shooting percentage and effective field goal, the Dallas Mavericks are going to have to

make a run as a team. They cannot be sitting as the 7 or 8 seed and in the play-in. They can't

even be the 6th seed. They would have to get to at least the 5th. But the reality is there's 18

games to go in the season, and they're 2.5 games back from the 5. It's not just that they need to

get the 5th seed, by the way. They need to win at least 48 or 49 games. To win 48, you have to go

12-6. To win 50, which is more ideal, you have to go 14-4. And in doing so, Luka has to be the

reason, almost single-handedly, that they win these games. It's the only way he has a chance

and even so, it's probably still an outside shot. The Thunder and the Nuggets cannot overtake the

Timberwolves for the one seed, and the Bucks have to stay behind the Cavs for second in the East

Finishing hot will at least create some recency bias and show people that Luka can win with this

roster no matter how poorly you think it is but the problem is I just don't have enough faith in

Jason Kidd to do so. Luka is having a historical offensive season and to see him putting up these

offensive numbers at 24 years old that an MVP is coming his way at some point within his next five

seasons. Get him a more competitive roster and we have a chance to see it but either way anyone

saying Luka sucks just isn't paying attention in my opinion. He is not the problem. He has weaknesses

but his strengths greatly outweigh them. They just may not be enough to win the MVP this season

in a year where the top three options seem to almost have bulletproof arguments

What do you think? Are we underselling how important Luka has been

to this Dallas Mavericks team? Are we underselling his historic offensive season

Or is he overrated and just putting up empty stats that don't contribute to winning

If you enjoyed this video, check out the videos I just made on the overwhelming case for another Jokic MVP

and the compelling case for an SGA MVP. Also be on the lookout for a Giannis video coming very soon

Thanks for watching. And as always, we'll see you on the hardwood