They just needed time to meld tbh. He was shipped off like an amazon package coming off an injury last year and they had to figure it out.

I think people underrated their coaching also, JJ has overachieved two years in a row IMO

Makes sense. Jokic gets so much love for being a defensive pylon but an otherworldly offensive player. The same logic doesnt seem to apply to Luka.

Treat em the same.

The Lakers have certainly overachieved preseason projections.

But that’s a weird argument for Luka over Wemby, given that the Spurs had lower expectations and are 7.5 games in front of the Lakers.

Luka missed Bron & AR for 20 games. Lakers were projected to be a play in team at best. Luka’s got them at the third seed. All the other top contenders teams have been consistently good without them playing. If we’re going by most valuable it’s Luka. Off his clutch play Shai would be the only player I’d have above him. 

JJ dragging Luka dragging Lakers

They finish 3rd last year wtf is this shit

His narrative isn’t as strong as Shai or Wemby, so he won’t win it. Wemby is the up and coming superstar with one of the best teams in the league and Shai is the incumbent MVP/Champion with crazy stats. Unfortunately Luka’s case is weaker. He’s got my vote and I want him to win one but the narrative isn’t strong enough

“Dragged”? He’s playing with Austin and LeBron.

Also, they were third with a worse roster last season. And won 50 games.

You know what team drastically overachieved this season? The spurs and victor wembanyama

Luka is targeted on a D because teams are trying to tire him otherwise he will kill them on offense.  I’m not saying he is a Gary Payton, but is not that bad when engaged. 

“Massive overachievement” they literally finished third in the West last season and then had (what was seen as) a really solid offseason

But they were 3rd last year with a worse roster. What kind of logic is this

Anyone forget that luka was in the finals in 2024?

These media members gave Steve Nash two mvps before Kobe got one. Don’t tell me about defense

They have Luka, Lebron and Reaves all playing at an all star level this is bare minimum? they were literally a 3rd seed last year.

A team with peak Luka doncic, Austin reeves, and LeBron should be good even if they’re not championship contenders. Why are people acting like this team is the 2018 Cavs when they clearly are not? Lakers media coverage is so insufferable

Was everyone brainwashed in to forgetting Luka pre-ASB or what

edit: apparently I wrote “Luka was the worst player on Earth pre-ASB and should’ve been waived”

Thankfully he has a POTM in the month Jokic got injured

I dont have any problem with Steins points. But for all the talk of “media bias,” are we not gunna bring up Stein’s?

Did he lose LeBron as a teammate? What am I missing?

This makes it seem like Luka is dragging a team of g leaguers to the 3rd seed like it’s the ‘07 Cavs

AR averaging 25 a game basically LeBrons been playing at an all star form Luke is the best shooter in the league outside of Steph And DA is soft but he is talented

The roster is no where near as bad as the media makes it seem but that’s the mvp narrative these days,

One extreme to the other

Luka isn’t mvp because he isn’t playing defense! (Not True) Luka is the mvp purely because he’s dragging the bobcats to the 3rd seed in the west (also not true)

Does Luka have the worst roster out all the candidates? Yes he does but the roster isn’t some joke either

most so experts predicted the Lakers to be a play-in team. And that it would take an MVP level performance to even get to the 6th seed.

Third is what it takes, but not first or second, right?

“Better than advertised” on defense? He’s advertised as one of the worst in the league so that bar ain’t too high dude!

No love for Hillbilly Kobe smh

There’s a reason they had to fire Nico Harrison for this

I’ll say this again here. You can’t be seen complaining or throwing a fit. It’s a no go for American voters. Luka can average 40 and he won’t get a MVP if he’s seen complaining.

Ahh yes, the upstart Lakers overcoming adversity, as their long history continues to demonstrate.

Lakers and Thunder play 2 more times. If the Lakers manage to win both and Luka significantly outperforms SGA, the media is gonna run with that. But the likely outcome of this is it pushes them towards Wemby. I think a lot of people wrote Luka off as MVP pretty early on.

I think it’s hard to not give it to SGA who improved after an already amazing season.

Every argument I see for any of the 4 guys makes sense to me. We are truly blessed with the talent on display 

Luka has by far the worst supporting cast of any of the candidates. He deserves more love

Massive overachievement is a bit much considering LeBron dragged them to the third seed last year. Will be an overachievement if they make WCF.

I have always said henis better defensively then they give him credit for.

Average 1 on 1 player but a much better team defender.

Plus Wemby and SGA have much better defensive players around them to help out.

Lakers probably gonna go +7 over their expected win total. Denver will slightly underperform and OKC will be right on, maybe +1.

Idk where is this “luka plays bad defense” is only narrative/advertised.

He was really really awful at defense before the win streak, hes def improve way more now, but thats after the criticism, props to him to actually show he can play defense, just no effort before, but still, he doesnt play defense before. Was that so hard to understand?

I feel like there’s been a huge push after Luka got underrated to fourth by one guy that’s maybe going too far. Being underrated at fourth doesn’t mean you’re first.

Lakers still have LeBron James and AR. Those are incredible players. Obviously not on the level of SGA’s total supporting cast, but he’s not like early career LeBron level.

The race looks close this year and I’m pushing for a Luka MVP !

If Jokic was putting up the march numbers Luka has been while keeping Denver in the 3rd spot, they’d be salivating, ready to give him that next mvp 

Luka has been playing insane but fwiw the Spurs weren’t projected to be anywhere near where they are. Obviously I think SGA is the MVP, the Thunder go as he goes but I think Wemby is second, if people have him as the MVP I can see why. I just don’t see the case for Luka over either one of them two.

They also keep forgetting Luka won Player of the Month in January so how can they say he only plays good in March?

just want it said, Stein is much more personally close to Luka than anyone else in the MVP race

Luka dragging scrubs to victory is a tale as old as time. Luka not being properly credited is just as old.

Too much complaining to be MVP

There’s a great Iztok Franco article about how basically the other MVP candidates have teams made for them, while Luka’s team is mostly the scraps of a previous team plus this year’s signings. And he (as well as Austin and LeBron) have made it work.

They’ll never give an mvp to someone with lebron as a teammate

If you take SGA off the thunder, they are still a playoff team. If you take Wemby off the Spurs they are still a play-in team. If you take Jokic off the Nuggets they are still a play-in team. If you take Luka off the Lakers they are getting one of the top picks in the draft

Not being looked at properly? It is literally being regurgitated EVERY single day, over and over and over again. At this point they are trying force this. Gimme a break 

I see Luka’s media train is in full swing.

First half of the season still matters

SGA is my vote for mvp this year but its true that the narrative against Luka has been set no matter what. Hes the only guy that can put up like 35/10/10 and people are just kind of like “meh” like thats something that wouldnt be a career defining moment for a lot of players. But for Luka its just another game lol. Jokic of course has had plenty of recognition for similar numbers. Harden on the Rockets is the only somewhat similar case I can think of but even he got more respect than this.

I’m so glad this guy doesn’t play for my team. If Doncic played for my team I would stop watching. He’s the most unlikeable “star” player I’ve ever personally witnessed.

The evaluation of his defense has been straight up wishcasting by talking heads that want to advance the “gunner doesn’t play defense “ narrative. I’m still giving mvp to shai though, it’s not an award for who had the best March.

If that’s the logic you’re using Jaylen brown should be the mvp as he drove a less talented team to a higher seed.

Just stop.

They’re 10+ games back.

I mean, has he really dragged them? It’s not like they’ve been clearly the 3rd best team in the conference all season they’re 3rd rn cus they’re peaking at the right time when teams like Hou, Den, and Min have dealt with injuries or the KD problem

They have definitely overachieved. From the coaching staff to the players. Good for them though, I hope they go far

but because he’s a Laker and LeBron is his teammate, he’ll finish 3rd or 4th.

Luka isn’t winning unfortunately. His ²³⁄₂₄ clears this season imo.

Why is there so much debate about who should be ranked 3-4 in the MVP debate lol

And Luca doesn’t even flop half as much as SGA!

All of that is true, but team record is the least granular way to evaluate a player’s impact on their team. on/off record, on/off +/-, etcetera are much more nuanced ways.

And all of them show that in the aggregate, Wemby gives the largest added value to his team.

You can write these stories about Luka but Brown bringing the Cs to 2nd seed without Tatum gets you dogshit

🤷🤷🤷

By advanced metrics he has been a better defender than Shai this year..but reputation goes so far

bro espn preseason predictions had Lakers at 10th and Spurs at 16th in the league and the Spurs are ahead of and better than the Lakers right now, I don’t want to hear about Luka should win just becuase the Lakers are overperforming

I’m ok with Shai winning MVP. He’s been amazing this year. And he hasn’t really had a bad stretch and Luka did in December. My issue is the blatant attempt to discredit Luka.

He’s definitely better to watch than SGA

Ya know cause he doesn’t stop the dam game all the time by going to the ft line

Luka is the MVP imo

Luka won’t win MVP this year. Only way he wins next year is if either he has a better playoffs this year than Shai, Wemby and Jokic. If anyone of these guys gets a first or second round exit, then people’s rankings of them will adjust for next season. Right now, Shai’s the champ, and Jokic is a proven playoff player. Wemby is untested. Luka’s last playoffs hurt him because he was out of shape and they got smoked by the Wolves.

I do think Luka elevates the Lakers more then the other candidates elevate their own teams. Especially Shai whose team is elite even without him.

The forced Lakers glazing by the nba media is so fucking annoying

More than one player can have a great season at a time.

Can we get rid of the MVP award and replace it with Offensive Player of the Year?

Luka is just average on defense, it’s always a tell for not watching the games when someone says he’s terrible

Yeah I guess but JB carried a Celtics team expected to be a lottery team into the top contenders in the East (no Cade Pistons aren’t doing anything as much as I like them)

Luka’s been excellent, but I think its worth noting that the Lakers over/under of wins for the season was 46.5, while the Spurs was 44.5. The Spurs have overachieved to a much greater degree than LA has, although LA has actually looked like a top tier team as of late, and I’d concede that the Spurs are a deeper team than the Lakers. With that said idk if I’d say Luka is DRAGGING the Lakers, Bron is averaging 18/7/7 on 55% shooting during this stretch of wins, and Reaves is averaging 23/6/5.

To me this is more of an argument that Luka has an argument over Jokic for 3rd place. If you squint hard enough maybe you could say he’s making a case for second or first, but I don’t see it.