Ahead of the coming 2025-26 NBA season, a group of league reporters, editors and analysts over at ESPN ranked their top three choices for every one of the league’s major awards, including the coveted MVP award.
None other than Los Angeles Lakers star guard Luka Doncic received plenty of recognition for the award among the panel, as he ended up with the second-most points for the hardware behind only Denver Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic.
Jokic became just the third player in league history to average a triple-double after he averaged 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game in the 2024-25 campaign.
“Either voter fatigue wears off quickly, or voters were very impressed by Nikola Jokic’s head-to-head battle with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the second round of the 2025 playoffs,” Ramona Shelburne wrote. “The three-time MVP came in as a heavy favorite to win for a fourth time in our preseason survey, almost doubling the votes for SGA to repeat. Voters also seemed to be impressed by Luka Doncic’s offseason transformation as the svelte version of the Los Angeles Lakers point guard came in second in early voting. Team success always plays a factor in voting, which is probably why SGA has slipped to third here. In other words, he already elevated the Thunder to a championship level and was recognized as the MVP for doing it. But what if there’s even another level for him — and the youngest championship team in decades — to reach?”
There should be little doubt that Doncic will be able to put up numbers that will make him worthy of being in the MVP conversation in the coming season. After all, he’s been a nightly triple-double threat throughout his NBA career, and he’s finished in the top 10 in MVP voting on five occasions already.
But whether the Lakers will be able to enjoy enough collective success for the Slovenian to have a real puncher’s chance to win the award is a more complicated question. The West projects to be nothing short of a bloodbath with all of the talented teams that reside in the conference, and securing a top-three seed for the second season in a row will be anything but easy for Los Angeles.
Doncic is still seeking the first MVP award of his pro career, and the closest he’s ever gotten to winning the award came in his final full season playing for the Dallas Mavericks, the 2023-24 campaign. He led the league in scoring that season and finished with the third-most votes for the hardware behind only Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic.
Doncic just so happened to lead the Mavericks to the 2024 NBA Finals not long after he torched the net during the 2023-24 regular season, but the team came up three wins short of a championship.
Dallas lost to forward Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in five games on the league’s grandest stage, and the team’s only win in the series came when it was already in a 3-0 hole.