Why Luka Doncic has entered the MVP conversation after a brilliant month of February
Doncic has the Mavericks only 2.5 games back of the 4th seeded Jazz entering March
Luka Doncic has been nothing short of spectacular to start his NBA career. He has already been named an NBA All-Star 3 times, has averaged 27 points, 8 assists, and 8 rebounds in each of his last 3 seasons, and is already 10th all-time in career triple-doubles with 45. Luka Doncic’s 23rd birthday was yesterday by the way. Let that sink in.
Although Doncic has arguably the best three major statistical category averages (points, rebounds, and assists) ever in his first four seasons, he has still struggled with efficiency. Of course, it is important to note that Doncic is a ball-dominant guard and the offense runs through him and only him when he is on the court.
Doncic has led the NBA in usage percentage the last two seasons, meaning he touches the ball almost every single possession he is in the game. With that, he is heavily guarded and also relied upon to create shots, and his efficiency falters because of that.
Doncic’s eFG% as a whole this season is 51.1, an almost 5% drop off from last season’s 55.5 and a 2% drop off from the season before of 53.1. Doncic’s TS% is 55.4 this season, an over 3% drop off from last season’s 58.7 and the season before’s 58.5.
Doncic’s PER of 24.40 (ranks 10th in the NBA) is also the lowest of his last three seasons as he had a 25.33 PER last season and a 27.65 PER in 2019-2020. Overall Doncic has had the least efficient season since his rookie year. However, over the past 10 games, Doncic has started to take his game back to the level of greatness we are accustomed to seeing as he averaged 34.7 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 8.8 assists with an eFG% of 53.5, a TS% of 58.2, and a 3PT% of 41.2.
Although the eFG% doesn’t jump off of the charts, for his usage percentage it is really good and his TS% is back to normal (from his previous dominant seasons). During this 10 game stretch, Doncic scored a career-high 51 in one game, 49 in another game, and 45 in another.
He is scoring at a rate he never has before and this is largely due to trading Kristaps Porzingis. Although at the time I did not understand the trade (considering Porzingis has been a two-way star this year and a nice compliment to Doncic), moving Porzingis has allowed Doncic to completely control the offense and flourish as a scorer.
As crazy as it sounds, Porzingis was so good that he was taking away shots from Doncic and not allowing him to get into a rhythm. This is evident as the trade happened on February 10th and Doncic had his career-high of 51 points that same night of the trade and hasn’t missed a beat since.
Adding Dinwiddie’s playmaking has also been another positive for the Mavericks, as Doncic doesn’t have to be the primary ball-handler 100 percent of the time he is in and can move off-ball way better than when Porzingis was around.
Furthermore, although Doncic’s numbers haven’t been his best as a whole this season, if he keeps playing at this rate they could become his best numbers simply based on his last ten games (all of which Porzingis did not play). The Mavericks have gone 7-3 in those games and pulled off a legendary 24 point deficit in the fourth-quarter comeback against the Warriors on Sunday night.
Everything is moving in the right direction for Dallas and Doncic, and because of the mix of his good team record and insane statistics (even though his advanced shooting stats could improve), he should be considered heavily for the MVP award alongside Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetoukounmpo, and Ja Morant.