With the end of the regular season approaching, we're taking a look at the case for each MVP candidate. Here's the case for Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic.
2024 NBA MVP: The Definitive Case for Luka Doncic
Argument In A Nutshell: He Does The Most Of Any Player In The League To Help His Team Win
Nikola Jokic has best described Doncic's impact has on the game. "He's a one-man army," the two-time MVP said in February about his friend, Doncic.
Doncic this season has:
- the most points scored
- the third-most assists
- the 17th-most rebounds
- the third-most field goals made
- the second-most 3's made
- the fourth-most free throws made
- the most turnovers
- the 10th-most steals
- the 14th-most deflections
- the fifth-most loose balls recovered
- the third-most drives
- the 13th-most passes thrown
- the fifth-most touches
- the second-most time of possession
Doncic is an impactful player, there's no question, but as far as production, he laps the field. Among the top-four in MVP odds, based on total points scored off field goals, free throws and assists:
Doncic: 4,347
Jokic: 3,951
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 3,635
Giannis Antetokounmpo: 3,579
There's a massive gap between Doncic and every other player in the league. No one creates more offense on a per-game or per-minute basis than Doncic.
In many ways, a good comparison is Russell Westbrook's 2017 MVP campaign. The Thunder finished sixth in the conference that season behind Westbrook's triple-double campaign. But what gets forgotten is that Westbrook also led the league in scoring. Doncic is on pace to be the second player in NBA history (Westbrook) to average over 30 points, nine rebounds and nine assists per game.
If there were an NBA Offensive Player of the Year Award, it would undoubtedly go to Doncic. The MVP Award has traditionally been centered far more on offense than defense.
If the thing you can do to be the most valuable is provide your team with the most basketball actions and results, then Doncic is most valuable.
The One-Man Army
Doncic is a mini-Zion with an elite jumper. He's like if James Harden were bigger, stronger and quicker. He's some weird through-the-looking-glass version of LeBron James. There's just no other player with his combination of physical and skill attributes.
The big jump this season has been from 3-point range. He's shooting 10 3's per game, a career-high, and shooting 38%, also a career-high. Doncic has the 10th-highest 3-point percentage of any player to average 10 3-point attempts per game behind Stephen Curry (multiple times), Klay Thompson, Damian Lillard and Buddy Hield.
He's unfazeable. Victor Wembanyama, all 500 feet of him, comes out on the help double, and Doncic hits the step-back clean over him:
Doncic's stepback is so dangerous that opponents have to stay on his hip at all times. Here, Keegan Murray plays to his right hip the whole way, and closes right in front of him without fouling. But you can't faze Doncic:
And even if you do manage to stay with him and force him off the stepback, he can just step through. From 3-point range:
Doncic is 75% at the rim (97th percentile), 48.1% from mid-range (85th percentile) and 38% from 3 (67th percentile). There's nowhere he struggles from on the floor, when he has the ball in his hands.
(He does struggle on spot-up shots as he's 104th out of 179 players with 150 catch-and-shoot opportunities and shooting just 37.5% on such attempts.)
Doncic's strength is brutal. Nicolas Batum is wiry, but he's got old-man NBA strength. Watch how far Doncic bounces him back on this drive:
If you try and be more physical with him, he'll draw a foul.
He's too strong for anyone to handle, but the bigger problem is that Doncic is largely unstoppable in terms of getting him to pick up his dribble. Watch the Thunder show high here, trying to get him to pick up his dribble and reset. Instead, he spins out of it, gets downhill and finishes falling away. It's everything — the spin move, the hop to get past the help, the shoulder to create separation and the balance to fade back for the layup.
It's so tough to stop Doncic from moving, and he's so good as long as he's moving. He drives hard, creates space and utilizes perfect footwork into a one-legged fadeaway:
So, then you decide you're just going to send help. This is also a terrible idea. Lots of teams send "naked" or clean doubles (not off a screen), but that's like blitzing Patrick Mahomes. He's going to tear you to pieces.
If you bring help strong side, he eviscerates you. P.J. Washington misses this corner shot, but look at this pass and the eFG% on this shot:
Teams will also try and bring help in the pick and roll to double. It doesn't work if Doncic's still moving because of how big he is and his ability to make moving jump passes like this:
If teams try this tactic, the most important pass teams can make is the reversal to the weak-side corner. However, Doncic is elite at that. No one is catching this corner fade route but his guy.
Doncic is also as good as any player in the league, including Jokic, at passing out of what look like a shooting motion. This particular pass brings everyone up and catches them off-guard.
Doncic's presence as a scorer opens up his passing. He's not quite the passer that Jokic or Tyrese Haliburton are. He has plenty of sick passes, but it's more about his ability to make consistent reads.
James and JJ Redick broke down what makes Doncic such a tough puzzle to defend.
Doncic's season is an onslaught of offense. He is complete and constant. He has the highest usage rate in the league, but also an elite efficiency mark. He's more efficient at the rim than Antetokounmpo, more efficient than Paul George from mid-range and more efficient from 3-point range than Jayson Tatum.
He is a one-man army, and he has conquered far more often than he's lost.
A No-Man Defense
It's not good. I'm gonna start there.
Doncic is a fine on-ball defender, especially when he's engaged in a big game. He can be a totally fine-to-good defender, the same way Harden could. But there's also a lot of stuff like this:
On this play, Gilgeous-Alexander misses the runner, but easily gets past Doncic.
The biggest problem, honestly, is in pick and roll. Doncic as the ballhandler defender in pick and roll is 13th percentile, giving up 1.04 points per possession. He just dies on screens.
Defense can help you win an MVP and should be considered, but the Mavericks do a fine enough job of hiding Doncic to protect him. His effort can just be so painfully bad a lot of the time though.
Doncic also costs his team the most of any player in the league when it comes to not getting back on defense. He's always complaining to the officials. Most MVP candidates are guilty of this. Doncic is the worst when it comes to it, and it genuinely hurts his team.
But overall, the Mavericks' defense is fine when he's on the court, and fine when he's off the court. The advanced metrics don't think poorly of him, in part because of how many rebounds he grabs. Watching Doncic on defense is annoying, but the overall impact isn't particularly harmful. He's not a constant target, he's not overwhelmed physically and he has his moments challenging players and making plays.
Like most really great and smart passers, he understands passing lanes, which is why his steals and deflection numbers are good. This isn't a strength of his, but also, his defensive effort has to be cached against his incredible offensive load. You can't expect him to be an explosive, high-effort defender given his athleticism and workload. So, the Mavericks make the most of it, and it's been good enough for 50 wins and the fifth-seed.
The Injury Postulate
An extremely popular argument for Doncic comes from the idea that the Mavericks were so injured this season, that the number of wins and/or net rating with Doncic has to be considered adjusted for injury.
I hate this idea. It ignores so much about the way the NBA operates and attempts to basically move the goalpost forward for players who haven't been as successful by proposing a hypothetical. The Mavericks rank 18th in total games missed due to players. Not only are they not the most injured team in the league, they're not the most injured team in the Western Conference playoff picture.
Phoenix has the fifth-most games missed due to injuries. Is Kevin Durant the MVP? What if he had his whole team healthy?
It's built upon a hypothetical that ignores the reality of the NBA regular season. You may have great numbers with guys healthy, but if they are out when you have your season dips, which every team goes through, those numbers look better than expected.
The two players to miss the most time for the Mavericks this season? Maxi Kleber and Josh Green. Those are good players! But Kleber is also the small-ball center third option and Green has a negative on/off-court split.
What this really gets to is Dereck Lively and Dante Exum. With those two healthy, along with Kyrie Irving, Doncic is 20-8. That's phenomenal, 71%.
The problem? When Jokic has his starting five, the Nuggets are 36-10 (78%). When Gilgeous-Alexander has Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, the Thunder are 48-17 (73%).
NBA seasons are long and messy. Teams go through ups and downs over the six months they play. Assuming that at full health the Mavericks would have been the same team requires too many assumptions. We have to deal with what actually happened. That doesn't mean that Doncic's lesser impact doesn't deserve consideration.
A totally fair thing to say is: "Luka Doncic would have won MVP had the Mavericks not had as many injuries."
A bad argument is to say: "Because the Mavericks had so many injuries, Luka Doncic deserves MVP."
In doing so, you would effectively be punishing the Nuggets or Thunder (or Bucks or Celtics) for their teams being healthy and having more success despite their injuries. You can make excellent arguments for Doncic. This argument is terrible and should be excluded.
Heavy is the Crown
But ultimately there are so many good arguments for Doncic. He shoulders the largest burden in the league when it comes to usage, plays heavy minutes, always delivers, shoots efficiently, playmake at a high level and is largely unstoppable.
Now, the impact questions are there, and they are real. If you're going to have the ball as often as Doncic does — even as he's moved more off-ball this season as that's usually just a mechanism to get him the ball rather than a lowering of his presence in the offense — then you have to hold that up with production that leads to impact. Those numbers aren't as good. He doesn't have the on-court offensive rating or net rating. His team doesn't have the win rate when he plays that the other candidates have.
But "most valuable" can be defined by how much you give your team. The most valuable factory for a company is the one that produces the most product at the least cost. The most valuable gemstone is the one that shines brightest.
With other MVP candidates, you can point to the systems around them, or the context of their success. With Doncic, even with a good team around him, especially since the All-Star break, you have no choice but to acknowledge that he is the reason for the success. He's constant and omnipresent — a juggernaut who smashes through every single wall.
He's Superman, faster than the bigs trying to body him, stronger than the quick guards trying to disrupt him, able to pierce defenses with X-ray vision and blast through double teams with laser beams.
We can reward team success or we can recognize that MVP is an individual award with team success qualifiers, all of which Doncic meets. He's not a sixth-seed on a 44-win team, his team is a legit contender. He's had the most prolific offensive season, maybe in NBA history, and his team wins far more than it loses.
He's a one-man army and that's why he's the 2024 NBA MVP.
