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I placed a wager on him months ago when all the skinny Luka images were surfacing, and I’m doubling down on it today. Dude is motivated as ever and out for redemption after how things ended last season. It’s still not too late to place your futures.

Here’s a look at all the records he broke today:

First Laker ever to start a season with two consecutive 40 point games and only the 4th player in league history to do so. (AD, MJ, Wilt being others)

First player ever with consecutive 40/10/5 games to start a season.

Most points ever by a guard through the first two games of the season

Most points ever as a Laker in his first 2 games - 92 surpassing Jerry West's 81.

Luka Doncic is also shooting 23-26 (88.5%) on two pointers to start the season.

Lakers don't look good enough (defensively) to finish top 4 in the West so I assume Doncic can't win MVP, especially because there's 2-way players that score just as much as Doncic.

But if Spurs have a better record, Luka won’t have much of an argument.

SGA will be averaging 33/6/6 on a 65 win OKC team. I dont think Lukas 35/9/8 will be enough to outweigh him being on a 44 win Laker team

The East is wide-open so Giannis has a much bigger chance than Doncic.
Giannis averaged 29.9 points, 11.9 rebounds, 6.0 assists for the last 6 years...
Giannis averaged 30.4, 11.9, 6.5 last season...
And I think there's a better chance of the Bucks finishing Top 2 in East than Lakers finishing Top 4 in West.

ball_takes23 wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:The East is wide-open so Giannis has a huge chance (he's averaged 29.9 points for the last 6 years, including 30.4 last season) if the Bucks finish Top 2 in East.

Giannis will have the same monster stats as Luka but better narrative and higher win total by virtue of having an easier schedule. He is the second favorite right now behind SGA

Yep and Giannis always plays better defense, plus he's so great he averages 6.5 assists too

bonita_the_frog wrote:The East is wide-open so Giannis has a huge chance (he's averaged 29.9 points for the last 6 years, including 30.4 last season) if the Bucks finish Top 2 in East.

Giannis will have the same monster stats as Luka but better narrative and higher win total by virtue of having an easier schedule. He is the second favorite right now behind SGA

Let's not start sucking each others' dicks quite yet

Something historic would have to happen for a guy to win MVP on a <50 win team, so I don’t see it.

ball_takes23 wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:The East is wide-open so Giannis has a huge chance (he's averaged 29.9 points for the last 6 years, including 30.4 last season) if the Bucks finish Top 2 in East.

Giannis will have the same monster stats as Luka but better narrative and higher win total by virtue of having an easier schedule. He is the second favorite right now behind SGA

While also being a better player and having less well regarded teammates.

ball_takes23 wrote:SGA will be averaging 33/6/6 on a 65 win OKC team. I dont think Lukas 35/9/8 will be enough to outweigh him being on a 44 win Laker team

Lol if he averages 35 9 8 the Lakers aren't gonna be a 44 win team. Unless he plays like 50 games due to injury

There are a bunch of guys who will be at the forefront of the MVP race. Luka is certainly one of them, but certainly no lock.

I am very comfortable stating he won't finish top 3.

Lakers fans always say the darndest things at the start of the season.

At the very least we need at least a 15 game plus sample size for making any legit MVP or ROTY claim (for any player)

It also needs to be mentioned that Luka (rightly or wrongly) has never been rated all that much by folks in the media who vote in the NBA, in the past his pouting and whining to the refs has cost him votes, i am certain of it.

If he can cut the petulance out of his game, that would actually be a big boost to his candidacy imo

But as I say, way too early to have serious MVP conversations after only 2 games.

Let see if he can keep this up for at least 70 games. The Lakers will need all of him with Lebron's status in flux.

If he keeps this numbers and shooting%, he will obviously be MVP unless the Lakers don't make it to the Play-in.

But let's see first how he does sharing court with LBJ.

the reigning mvp will win more games, defends better, and is just as dangerous on offense...and then you gotta get past joker, giannis, and wemby...top 5 for sure for doncic

I think it’s Wembys time

dballislife wrote:the reigning mvp will win more games, defends better, and is just as dangerous on offense...and then you gotta get past joker, giannis, and wemby...top 5 for sure for doncic

Well to be fair, they're using 2 different metrics for quality % of open shots created from assists and playmaking. Luka has been the best playmaker in the past 5 years according to those. If you combine that with points scored or created from scoring+assists, then saying SGA is equal on offense sounds like a big stretch to me.

When it comes to winning games and defense, it can help if you have legit 7-8 man deep roster that can help you out with that, which OKC obviously have.

But i do agree that he probably won't win MVP. Those who watched him on Mavs know what crazy things he was doing there and was barely mentioned in the top3 MVP race. So i also think he won't win it unless Lakers have a crazy good record.

doogie_hauser wrote:It also needs to be mentioned that Luka (rightly or wrongly) has never been rated all that much by folks in the media who vote in the NBA

That's not really true, he was 4th in the MVP voting in his second year, 3rd last year. They don't rate him as high as Joker or Shai, obviously, but he is rated okay. If he is really, really good, I don't think they would go out their way to not give him a strong consideration.