Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Dončić racked up an astonishing 60 points against the Miami Heat last night, March 19. This comes off the back of a 40-point near triple double the evening before against the Houston Rockets, and an impressive March for the Slovenian just keeps getting better.
Dončić has been there or thereabouts in the MVP race this season, but Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s record-breaking season for the Oklahoma City Thunder seems to be at the forefront of people’s minds. Just this week, Shai broke one of the NBA’s longest standing records, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s streak of 126 games with 20 points or more scored. A feat that many wouldn’t have thought possible in today’s NBA, it highlights the consistency and quality of the 2025 finals MVP.
Of course, there are other names that have circulated among conversations for the award, such as Nikola Jokic, Cade Cunningham and Jaylen Brown. Dončić, for me, is the only real contender for the award. The Lakers have been mediocre at best this season, and executives of the franchise even claimed this year would be a filler year, but recent performances indicate they could make a real push in the West. Granted, the Lakers can be really bad, but also can be as good as we’ve seen recently. It’s a weird one, obviously the Rockets and Heat aren’t proper championship contenders, but they’re no mugs. They’ll be in the playoffs, and could make a surprise appearance beyond the first round, but the Lakers made it look like men playing against kids these past two nights.
Since the infamous trade that saw Dončić arrive in Los Angeles, he hasn’t exactly turned up any trees alongside LeBron James. Perhaps the final year of his career, but certainly his penultimate, I find it hard to believe James’ mindset will allow for anything but a decent shot at the finals. As for ‘the King’, he has been immense for his age, catching lobs and shooting efficiently like it’s 2012 again. He scored 30 points against the Rockets on 93% shooting efficiency, his most effective 30 points and above game of his career at 41 years of age, yes 41. If both LeBron and Luka can bring this kind of performance in the playoffs, I don’t see a ceiling for this Lakers roster.
Amid rumours of family trouble for Dončić, he seems to be putting all that to one side with the performances we are seeing. He’s averaging 34.5 points so far in March, and 33.4 for the season, so not a huge difference, but if anything it displays the consistency he has been operating at this season. Now, I’m not sitting here and saying he should win the MVP, actually my pick would still go to Shai, but with 14-15 games left in the regular season, things could definitely change.