On Friday, ESPN's Tim Bontemps pretty much ruled out Luka Doncic winning NBA MVP this season.
According to Bontemps, the Lakers are unlikely to put together enough team success to keep Doncic in the running alongside players like Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham.
Luka Doncic MVP chances are near zero, according to Tim Bontemps
Another MVP candidate mentioned by Bontemps was Victor Wembanyama, whose Spurs are having a far superior season to the Lakers.
Then there's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, of course, who is having an even more impressive statistical season than last year, in which he won MVP. Furthermore, the Oklahoma City Thunder have had the league's best record for almost the entire year.
Nikola Jokic is another barrier to Luka's MVP candidacy, that is, if Jokic ends up playing enough games to qualify for the award. The Joker has missed 16 games this season, which means another two absences would drop him out of the running for postseason awards.
Luka, by the way, has missed 12 games, making his own qualification for awards not completely set in stone. A late-season injury (and six more missed games) would rob Doncic of award candidacy.
There's a strong correlation between team success and the MVP award, but there's also a lot of wiggle room. The past ten years of the award show this.
In 2021-22, Jokic took home the award despite his Denver Nuggets finishing sixth in the West with 48 wins. The year prior, Joker also won MVP with the Nuggets winning 47 games, although they finished third in the West.
Additionally, Russell Westbrook took home the MVP in 2016-17 despite his Thunder finishing sixth in the West with 47 wins.
The takeaway here is that it's possible, historically speaking, to win the award if your individual performance and stats are strong enough to offset team mediocrity (and by mediocrity, we're talking a six-seed at worst).
The problem for Luka is that Jokic has equally impressive stats this season, seeing as he's averaging a triple-double.
Take Joker out of the equation, and the argument for Luka becomes a tad sturdier, but even then, SGA's 31.8/6.4/4.4 averages, along with OKC's team success, still account for a tough-to-beat resumé.
Cunningham's having a First Team All-NBA type year, but at 25.7 points per game, he isn't quite scoring at the clip required to be ahead of Luka, SGA, or Jokic in the discussion, despite Detroit's success. Remember, the Pistons play in a far weaker conference.
Bontemps is right that Luka won't win MVP this year, but Bontemps is also selling Doncic short in some ways. ESPN's recent MVP poll ranking Doncic fifth is further malpractice.