Luka Doncic. Image via: Luke Hales/ Getty Images
He led the league at 33.5 points per game last season, marking the second time in three years he’s topped the NBA in scoring, after averaging 33.9 points with Dallas in 2024-25.
“I think it’s pretty well set up for Luka to potentially win his first,” MacMahon said, adding that a similar 53-win season paired with those kinds of stats would give Doncic what he called a serious case. MVP isn’t the only trophy in play. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst joined MacMahon on The Hoop Collective Podcast to back Doncic as an early favorite for the scoring title too.
With LeBron James gone and the Lakers now fully his team, Doncic walks into the 2026-27 season as the lone face of a franchise reshaping its identity around him. The Lakers haven’t had an MVP winner since Kobe Bryant took it home in 2007-08, and that drought hangs over this whole conversation. ESPN insider Tim MacMahon thinks the timing could not line up better for a first MVP trophy, and the numbers already back that theory up. MacMahon pointed out that the pressure on the Lakers is about as light as it has been since LeBron first arrived, which oddly works in Doncic’s favor. Voters tend to reward players who outperform modest team expectations, and Doncic has the individual numbers to make that happen regardless of what the roster around him looks like. Doncic spent his offseason rehabbing a hamstring issue rather than chasing headlines, and he now enters camp fully healthy alongside Austin Reaves as the team’s other veteran leader.