I’m still salty about him missing it last year due to the injury. He was probably on pace to be 1st team for 10+ years in a row.

This is what people greatly under appreciate. Luka being 6x all nba in 6 of his first 8 years in the league is more impressive than winning 1 mvp. The amount of consistently great basketball you have to play to achieve that at such a young age is incredible.

If not for his inury last season - Luka would be on his way to 7 straight All NBA First team selections. 7!!!

It’s only been a rule since 23-24 so Luka hasn’t benefited from it really at all, but KD was definitely hurt by being a forward before All NBA was positionless. You have Bron guaranteed in basically every year of the 2010s and the years KD missed it there was either Kawhi being clear 1st option on the spurs straight into Giannis for the other forward spot. Generally forward just being super stacked is rough

You can’t really compare the All NBA First Team Forward spots from 2003 until 2020 with any guard spot ever.

You had Duncan, KG and Dirk competing for all of the 00’s, and then you had LeBron, who held a First Team spot for 11 straight seasons. KD shared 5 of those 11. Then Giannis and Kawhi came in for a bit towards the end.

Crazy thing is these are basically his stats this season too.

33/8/9 for the season

It’s true

Top 20, and that is not to bellitle them

What !?

You ain’t top 10 with just 1 ring.

Everyone in the top ~12 (wherever you put Kobe, Duncan, Jokic, Curry, KD, Hakeem, etc) has at least 1 MVP and multiple championships.

Joker has a good case. 3x MVP and a ring

Luka has none of the hardware that matters (MVP, Championship). He’d have to a do a LOT of work in the next ~5yrs, it’s prolly not gonna happen

Lebron has probably ran as many routes as TE this season

To be fair, Luka is one of those guys that rarely misses those fast break passes, so it’s worth it for him to get the rebound.

I think the media is always somewhat hesitant to give young players MVP as good as they are (Wemby is definitely good enough). Unless the spurs get the ring this year, I don’t think he’ll get MVP next season if they aren’t the one seed by a good margin, SGA is very tough to beat and we’ll probably get Jokic back in form next season. The only other person that has offensive production similar to those 2 is Luka and the MVP is unfortunately a very offensive oriented award. Ofc this is all assuming the Lakers are even competitive enough to get the correct narrative, it’s all speculation lmao

Luka will get a MVP if he wins a ring and has a good season afterwards lol. Probably the only scenario in which he gets one.

Have one good 3&D wing in place of Rui/Lebron(one must go) and then one lob threat center who can play defense.

Retain Reaves, and maybe if cap permits add another rotation guard.

Step One: let LeBron out to pasture

They need three starters around Luka/AR.

1. Two 3&D wings that can handle POA responsibilities and versatile enough to switch onto different match ups and are good enough play finishers on the offensive end.

2. A rim running big that is a good rim protector and has some versatility to defend different t coverages. Needs to be an excellent screen setter lob threat, bonus if they can make a jumpshot outside the paint.

The bench is pretty much in place with Smart/Kennard/LaRavia/Rui/Hayes.

Look at the Mavs who went to the finals. Lots of 3/D, secondary ball handler shot creator, lob threat centre rotation who can play D. When Mavs went the distance Celtics a) were incredible and by far the better team but also b) Kyrie disappeared, Luka was injured and our semi consistent corner three from PJ got taken away by Celtic d. Add some more 3pt consistency and it looks way different.

Lebron making 20M+ less

Just do what Dallas did.

Maybe this season, but he was at least as good as them his last season with the Mavs and still was only a very distant third in the MVP race. He averaged close to 34/10/10, took his teams to the finals and had a 73 point game that season.

If that season wasn’t enough to earn him MVP, I don’t know if he can actually win it. He was absolutely superhuman that season. Made me actually look forward to catching Mavs games. Maaaybe if he does the same on the Lakers he has a small chance? Now Wemby is coming up though, so I don’t know. He might end up on that short list of generational players without an MVP trophy.

SGA is easily ahead, but I think he’s ahead of Jokic or at least on par. Better roster, won the head to head, comparable counting stats, and whil the issue of them being worse with Jokic since he came back is probably overblown, it’s still a fair knock on him.

This thought process is exactly why he hasn’t won one yet and it’s pretty stupid imo, especially in 2024

Jokic/Shai/Cade play well and they get “he needs to be up there on the MVP ladder”

Luka plays well and it’s “he’ll get it one day”

It’s disingenuous to pretend he’s not an MVP candidate and should’ve been 2nd or 3rd minimum

He’s above Jokic in standings now, no excuse for the rankings to be that biased

they’re ignoring that while he was playing down a level for a part of the season and now went up a level , shai never went down a level

He’s not out of it, he’s just appropriately priced as a long shot.

Even if you say there’s an 80% chance that he stays hot, and 80% chance the Lakers keep winning, and he doesn’t miss more games, and SGA misses a couple… it’s a long list of factors that have to work out.

Out of mvp contention for sure but it’s looking like brown or Luka is getting that 5th slot on first team all nba.  Luka has gained ground. Brown is falling. Especially since Tatum came back and put brown back to his more fitting (but less celebrated) 2nd option role.  Tatum has already lead the team in scoring during his first 4 games. Low efficiency as he works off rust but his typical 19-20 shots per night while brown has not yet gone over 17 shots in those games… that’s his typical average over the past couple seasons. So without brown jacking up 23 shots a night like he did for much of the season on fading efficiency, I assume his scoring average will continue to drop.  

Brown is a media darling (2nd most media votes during allstar) and the narrative of brown being “best two way” got him over Luka, but at some point Luka’s stats might just end up too overwhelming to ignore.  Doncic is the NBA equivalent of a designated hitter but when the guy is cracking 60+ home runs in a season you can’t just dismiss it. 

Why would it be? The Lakers are nearly 11 games behind OKC, and SGA is straight up just more impactful already lol

Luka isn’t even ahead of Wemby imo, and I’d take Jokic over him by being a clearly better player on a comparable team