2025 Is projected to be year the NBA finally respects Luka Doncic

With the NBA schedule being released just a little over a week ago, Mavericks fans are already pinpointing the most exciting matchups for their team for the 2024-25 NBA season. Mavericks fans have a totally different roster to look forward to in this coming season, as Dallas added Quentin Grimes, Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, and Spencer Dinwiddie to a squad that won the Western Conference Finals last season.

The Mavericks clearly struck gold with some of the moves they made this past offseason, even if they, unfortunately, lost a ball-stopper at the point-of-attack in Derrick Jones Jr. While the moves the Mavericks made this past offseason have put them in a position to potentially compete for another championship this coming season, one of the biggest wins from the Mavericks offseason wasn’t a specific roster transaction that the team made.

Unfortunately for Dallas superstar Luka Doncic, the Slovenian national team was eliminated in the Semifinals of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament earlier this summer, stripping Doncic of a chance to proudly represent his home country on the biggest international stage for basketball.

However, this outcome was likely a favorable one for the Dallas Mavericks and their fans, as Doncic looked extremely hobbled in Slovenia’s qualifying games and clearly looked like he hadn’t made a full recovery from the injuries he was dealing with throughout last season’s NBA Playoffs.

2025 could be year Doncic finally wins MVP

As the Mavericks approach training camp Doncic projects to be fully healthy barring something unforeseen, and many analysts think this will finally be the year that Doncic has a polished enough argument to win the MVP award, especially when you take into consideration that the Mavericks are poised to win well over 50 games next season.

In ESPN’s recent expert predictions for every single major award this upcoming NBA season (subscription required), ESPN staff writers granted Doncic 48 percent of first-place votes for their MVP prediction, which was the most out of any player on their MVP poll.

Doncic has been projected to win MVP in many preseason rankings over the past few years, so this recognition isn’t anything new, but perhaps the expectations are as high as they’ve ever been since Doncic stepped foot in Dallas.

It’s fairly objective that Doncic is equipped with the best roster that he’s ever had since being in Dallas, and he’s also coming off of an offseason that didn’t see him have to overextend himself for his national team, so it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest if Doncic put together a dominant campaign in the 2024-25 season to win MVP.

As polarizing of a player as Doncic is for some national media outlets, it’s great to see ESPN recognize how deserving Doncic is of being the MVP-favorite for next season, but it’s without doubt that him and the Mavericks still have to have a wildly successful season for this to actually happen.