Luka Doncic's Historic NBA Season: How Many Mavs Wins Can Claim MVP?

Luka Doncic is having a historic year, but his NBA MVP chances will hinge on how well the Dallas Mavericks can finish off the 2023-24 regular season.

Dalton Trigg | Feb 13, 2024

In this story:

Dallas Mavericks

Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic isn't just having a great season, he's having a historic one. Through 46 games, the 24-year-old is averaging 34.3 points, 8.8 rebounds and 9.6 assists.

If those numbers hold over the last 28 games, Doncic would become the first player in NBA history to have a regular season averaging at least 34 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. And even if you lower the criteria to seasons where a player has averaged at least 30 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, there have only been four players in league history to have such a season: Oscar Robertson (1960-61, 1961-62, 1963-64, 1964-65), Michael Jordan (1988-89), Russell Westbrook (2016-17) and Doncic last season (2022-23).

Luka Doncic, Daniel Gafford, Dallas Mavericks — Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Despite these eye-popping numbers, Doncic has remained on the outside looking in when it comes to national media MVP rankings. This in large part due to the Mavs having a mediocre record for most of the season while dealing with several roster injuries. However, Doncic and the Mavs are trying to change the narrative, as they've won a season-high five consecutive games with one more to play on Wednesday against the San Antonio Spurs before the All-Star break.

On today's episode of the Mavs Step Back Podcast, we discuss the Mavs' latest win over the Washington Wizards. It wasn't pretty, but Doncic and his teammates persevered and erased an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit en route to a 112-104 win. In addition to Doncic's MVP chances, we discuss at length the immediate impacts Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington have had since making their way to Dallas via trades, among several other topics.

You can listen to the entire show below, and be sure to hit "SUBSCRIBE" if you haven't already! Send us your Mavs takes in our YouTube video comments below as well. We want to hear from you!

Published Feb 13, 2024

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.