Los Angeles Lakers All-NBA and All-Star guard Luka Doncic is on pace to win his second NBA scoring title, as he’s averaging 33.7 points per game, but he will likely have to wait for his first NBA MVP award.

After the Lakers’ 116-99 win over Brooklyn on Friday night, in which Doncic scored 41 points, NBA.com’s Shaun Powell updated the Kia MVP Ladder.

Last week, Oklahoma City Thunder guard and reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was first, followed by Doncic, San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, and Denver Nuggets three-time MVP Nikola Jokic. This week’s ranking has Wembanyama first, followed by SGA, Jokic, and Doncic.

At his postgame press conference on Friday, Doncic was asked for his thoughts on the MVP race and what it would mean to win.

“Yeah, hopefully, but the better I play, my rating seems to go down, so I don’t know what more I can do,” Doncic said, translating his response from Spanish to English.

After Doncic’s 41-point game against Brooklyn, Lakers guard Austin Reaves said, “And he continues to drop in the MVP race, which is insane to me. I guess it don’t really matter. Maybe he’s gotta score 60. I don’t know.”

On March 19, Doncic became the first Laker to score 60 points in a game since the late Kobe Bryant’s 60 points in his final NBA game on April 13, 2016.

The Lakers wrapped their six-game road trip with a win in Indiana on Wednesday, and Doncic returned to Los Angeles having done something only Michael Jordan had done before.

“Luka Doncic is the first player to average 40 points over a six-game span, all on the road, since Michael Jordan in 1986,” ESPN’s Dave McMenamin wrote on Wednesday night, citing ESPN research producer Matt Williams.

On Thursday, FS1’s First Things First co-host Nick Wright also came to bat for Doncic’s MVP case.

“I fear something that has only ever happened to Luka before is about to happen again,” Wright said. “Score 33 or more [per game] on a 50-win team the last 60 years. Wilt [Chamberlain] did it, won MVP. Kareem did it, won MVP. Jordan did it, won MVP, [and] then did it again — almost won MVP but got 21 first-place votes. [James] Harden did it as the defending league MVP, came in second [in 2019] to Giannis [Antetokounmpo].”

Wright continued, “Two have not, but they both had already won MVP prior, and they both finished second that year. The other guy is Luka, two years ago.”

Doncic won the 2023-24 NBA scoring title while averaging 33.9 points for the 50-32 Dallas Mavericks. The Mavs made it to the 2024 NBA Finals, where the Boston Celtics beat them in five games.

According to StatMuse, Doncic has 29 games in which he’s scored at least 35 points. The next closest are Gilgeous-Alexander and Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star guard Anthony Edwards, each with 19 such games.

StatMuse also shared that Doncic is the first Laker in franchise history to post 2,000-plus points, 500-plus assists, and 100-plus steals in one season. The Lakers confirmed that Doncic is the first Laker since Bryant in the 2012-13 season to record over 100 steals, and he’s currently the only player in the NBA to average over 30 points and have 100-plus total steals.

It’s not that Doncic is being robbed of the 2026 NBA MVP. SGA is averaging 31.4 points with a more efficient field-goal percentage for the defending champion Thunder with a league-best 58-16 record.

Wembanyama is likely to win Defensive Player of the Year, leads the NBA in blocks, and averages 24.2 points and 11.2 rebounds for the 55-18 Spurs.

Jokic is going to finish the season averaging a triple-double (27.9 points, 12.8 rebounds, 10.8 assists) for the second straight year.

But Doncic being fourth on the Kia MVP Ladder is a little surprising, given the criteria that historically go into winning MVP. According to DraftKings, Doncic has the third-best odds behind SGA and Wemby.

The Lakers are 48-26 and essentially guaranteed to be the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference when the NBA playoffs start on April 18. Los Angeles has gone 13-2 in March, including a nine-game winning streak.