For the third straight season, Luka Doncic has opened training camp as the favorite by the Las Vegas oddsmakers to win
the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award. This year, the Dallas Mavericks’ superstar point guard hopes the third time is indeed the charm.
Denver’s Nikola Jokic captured the league’s MVP award the past two seasons. It’s a coveted trophy Doncic wouldn’t mind putting on his mantel.
“To be an MVP of this league, not a lot of people can say that,” Doncic said. “It’s a long process.
“Hopefully one day I can win it. But let’s see. First, we’ve got to win it, and then you can talk about it.”
Dirk Nowitzki (2007) is the only member of the Mavs to win the league’s MVP award. Doncic finished fifth in the MVP race last season.
One reason Doncic is regularly mentioned in the MVP conversation is because of his uncanny ability to control a game, to put defenders on skates, and his innate ability to be the best player on the court on any given night. It’s a job he treasures, particularly when the game is one the line and only one basket is needed to decide who wins and who loses.
“I wish I was playing,” coach Jason Kidd said. “Especially with Luka, because he’s going to get you an open shot.”
Doncic is such a special player that when Phoenix Suns center JaVale McGee went on the open market as an unrestricted free agent this past summer, he immediately set his sights on joining the Mavs. McGee watched as Doncic averaged 32.6 points, 9.9 rebounds and seven assists during the Mavs’ second-round playoff series against the Suns this past May.
In fact, in the Mavs’ stunning 123-90 lop-sided Game 7 victory in Phoenix, Doncic finished with 35 points and 10 rebounds in just 30 minutes. Plus, he had the same amount of points at halftime (27) of Game 7 as the entire Suns’ team.
For McGee, it became: if he couldn’t beat Doncic and the Mavs, he might as well join them. Which he did after signing a three-year, $17.2 million contract with the Mavs over the summer.
“Seeing seven straight games of Luka definitely helped with the decision of coming here,” McGee said Monday during the Mavs’ Media Day at American Airlines Center. “He’s a player who gets everybody involved. I like being around players like that.
“All the attention that he draws and the way that this system is set up to have all the shooters around, that really opens up the lane for players like me who are dynamic at the rim.”
Doncic’s ability to be so dynamic at the rim and on the perimeter has thrust his native country of Slovenia into another stratosphere on the basketball court. In the summer of 2020, Doncic led Slovenia to the bronze medal game in the Olympics, and earlier this month he guided them to the quarterfinals of the EuroBasket tournament, where they were upset by Poland, 90-87, on Sept. 15.
Doncic, who said the wrist he injured during EuroBasket is fine, admits playing for the Slovenian National Team obviously means he has to give up some of the down time he would normally enjoy after the NBA season concludes.
“When you represent your country you basically give up your summer to play for your country,” he said. “I really respect everybody who does that. It’s really hard.
“At some point you have to go to practice, but you want to be on the beach somewhere. But I always enjoy every moment playing for my national team. We were basically two months together, so we practiced a lot. We were always practicing. Sometimes we practiced twice a day.”
And because of those numerous hours Doncic spent playing games and practicing with the Slovenia National Team this summer, Kidd plans to limit what the four-year veteran does in training camp.
“We’re going to start him a little light,” said Kidd, who visited Doncic in Slovenia this past offseason. “We’re going to go light tomorrow and then we’ll talk again and he’ll probably participate and be ready to go on Wednesday.”
Kidd, however, knows it’s difficult to keep Doncic off a basketball court.
“As we all know, Luka loves to play basketball,” Kidd said. “He’s ready to go, but we want to just start slow.
“This is a marathon. He just got done playing (in the EuroBasket tournament). But any time he sees that game plan for practice and he sees a scrimmage, he’s ready to play.”
Doncic is always “ready to play” because he’s a certified gym rat who craves a challenge. And getting back on the basketball court following the grueling summer he just endured – in his eyes – is a stern challenge.
“I think Luka is in a great place,” Kidd said. “You can see his spirits are high, he’s smiling, he feels great, he looks great, so he’s ready to play. He’s 23 years old.
“We ask a lot of him and we have to — as a staff and as his teammates — we have to try to find a way to make it easier for him. And that’s going to be a great challenge that everyone is up for. The relationships that we have, the communication, talking when he’s tired and if he doesn’t have it, then we’ll sit him.”
Doncic insists that he probably had more time off this past summer than he did in the summer of 2021 during Slovenia’s run to the Olympics.
I feel good,” he said. “I was probably sleeping 13-14 hours a day (this past summer), so I’m good now.
“I’m probably not going to do everything (in training camp). We’re still trying to figure out a plan.”
Whatever that plan is, Doncic and his teammates will have to decipher it without his backcourt running mate, Jalen Brunson, who signed a massive four-year, $104 million free agent contract with the New York Knicks this past summer. Doncic and Brunson were friends on and off the court, and were on one accord while joining the Mavs in the same (2018) draft class.
“Obviously we can’t replace JB,” Doncic said. “He was an amazing player, an amazing guy. It was really fun to have him on the team.
“But I think Spencer (Dinwiddie) is going to have a really bigger role this year, and I think he can do it. He has the abilities to do it.”
Because of Doncic’s advanced abilities, the Mavs advanced to the Western Conference Finals last season where they lost to the eventual NBA champion Golden State Warriors in five games. It was sort of a lessons learned sort of series for the young Mavs as they continue their quest to capture the franchise’s second NBA championship while venturing through the wild, wild Western Conference.
“I think this year is even harder in the West, but you learn,” Doncic said. “You see how Golden State played throughout the playoffs.
“They played as a team, they played amazing, they played amazing defense, and you’ve got to look up to them and see how they played and learn from it.”
During that learning process, Doncic always has his eyes set squarely on one prize.
“Always the goal is the same for me, for the team,” he said. “We’re trying to win the championship.
“That is the only goal we have and that’s what we’re going to work for.”
And if Doncic happens to also win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award along the way, that’s just an added bonus.
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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