Luka Dončić has taken his production to another level during the Los Angeles Lakers’ late-season surge, padding his lead as the league’s most prolific scorer.
Despite Dončić’s dominance and the Lakers’ strong record, Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix doesn’t view the six-time All-Star as a viable “tier 1” MVP candidate. Mannix pointed to Dončić’s ‘bad’ defensive rating, an argument the NBA world strongly pushed back on.
Chris Mannix Catches Flak for Nitpicking Luka Dončić’s MVP Case
While Dončić and Co. have experienced their share of ups and downs, they’ve overcome early-season concerns about their lackluster defense and top-heavy offense to rise to third in the Western Conference (48-26).
The Lakers have gone 14-2 over their last 16 outings, including statement wins over the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Rockets (twice), and New York Knicks. During that stretch, which dates back to Feb. 28, they boast a top-six offensive rating (121.3) and top 10 defensive rating (111.7).
Meanwhile, Dončić has averaged a whopping 36.5 points per game throughout that 16-game span, improving his league-best scoring average to 33.7 points a night, more than two points above the next-highest player.
Still, on Thursday’s edition of “Open Floor: SI’s NBA Show,” Mannix stood firm on his belief that Dončić doesn’t warrant serious MVP consideration.
“Luka Dončić [is] in my second tier. Now, I know that there’s going to be some criticism about Luka being on the second tier. I mean, I know you’ve got him probably in your first tier; he’s been outstanding offensively. I just can’t get past the defensive numbers for Luka Dončić,” Mannix said.
“The defensive numbers have just been bad. … Luka has an individual defensive rating this year of 115.6. That would rank 119th among the 180 players with 25-plus starts this season. So, he has been, in any measurable statistic, one of the worst defensive players in the league, and when the competition is this close, I’ve gotta factor that in.
“… So, I put him in my second tier for that reason. He’s the best offensive player in the game, the best offensive weapon in the game, but defensively, he’s coming up short.”
Mannix went on to name Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokić, and Jaylen Brown as the four players he is “considering casting” his MVP vote for.
Chris Mannix omits Luka Dončić from his tier 1 of serious MVP contenders due to his poor defensive rating🤔 pic.twitter.com/mwiJhj7gda
— StatHunter (@stat_hunter) March 30, 2026
The segment promptly went viral over the weekend, with many pundits and prominent fan pages on X questioning the logic behind penalizing Dončić for a team-centric defensive stat. Meanwhile, others indicated that Jokić is a similar caliber defender on a team trailing LA in the West.
“Chris Mannix, who has an MVP vote, is using a stat that isn’t an individual measure to ‘prove’ why Luka is a bad defender. He puts Jokić in his ‘Tier 1’ right after 😂,” LakersMuse reacted.
“WHY. ARE. WE. USING. DEFENSIVE. RATING. AS. AN. INDIVIDUAL. STAT. IN. 2026??????” Yahoo Sports’ Nekias Duncan lamented.
“Having Luka Dončić outside the top four is ludicrous. Having Jaylen Brown in the top four over Luka is borderline disqualifying,” Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey contended.
“This is why it’s disturbing to me that these are the folks responsible for deciding MVP because they’re not even aware of how certain metrics that they wanna use to justify their decisions work,” basketball personality Richard Staple asserted.
“DrTG measures how many points per 100 possessions a team allows when a player is on the floor. That’s a metric heavily influenced by the team. Luka’s DRTG on Basketball Reference is 114. Jokić’s is 112, but somehow that gets Jokić in a different tier even though by your own admission, Luka’s the best offensive player in the game.”
“What an asinine argument. Defensive rating is a team stat, not an individual one. BUT, if you’re going to make it, I wonder why he didn’t bring up Jokić in this way. Lakers’ defensive rating with Luka on the floor: 115.2. Nuggets’ defensive rating with Jokić on the floor: 115.5,” Lakers writer Darius Soriano pointed out.
“Gentle reminder that individual defensive stats SUCK. And Luka’s defense shouldn’t be considered ‘bad’ at all,” BBALLBREAKDOWN argued.
“My newest NBA take is that offense is underrated. Bc if Luka’s defense is as bad as people say it is AND that Lakers roster is as bad as media folk said it was at the start of the season… his offense must be pretty spectacular to have them at the 3 seed,” Emmy-winning director Jason Gallagher reasoned.
If Dončić’s current averages hold relatively steady and the Lakers secure at least two more victories, this could mark his second season averaging at least 33 ppg on a 50-win team without winning MVP. The last time he did so, during the 2023-24 campaign with the Dallas Mavericks, he went on to secure his first NBA Finals berth.
A similar MVP snub this year could leave the 27-year-old extra motivated to further prove his doubters wrong and spearhead another deep playoff run.
