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Lakers' Luka Doncic given surprising MVP ranking by NBA expert originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Los Angeles Lakers' nine-game winning streak came to a halt in the Motor City on Tuesday night, when the East-leading Detroit Pistons held on for a 113-110 win over Luka Doncic and the surging Lakers.
The Doncic-inspired winning streak catapulted the Lakers to third in the Western Conference, where they may well stay for the remainder of the regular season given the inconsistency of the Houston Rockets, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets below them.
However, the streak may not have been enough to catapult Doncic firmly into the conversation for this first career NBA MVP award.
MORE: Cooper Flagg is reminding Mavs fans of Luka Doncic in one encouraging way
Though Doncic averaged better than 40 points per game over the Lakers' winning run, Yahoo Sports' Ben Rohrbach doesn't think that this scorching run -- or Doncic's league-best 33.4 points per game average -- will change the calculus for voters. Rohrbach has ranked Doncic fifth on his MVP ladder, behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokic and Cade Cunningham.
As Rohrbach explains, the Lakers' 115.5 defensive rating this season when Doncic is on the floor is bottom-10 territory in terms of defensive efficiency. Though Rohrbach credits Doncic with a recent improvement on that end, sustaining that consistency over a full season will help his case with voters.
That's because, as Rohrbach explains, "t he Lakers score 119.1 points per 100 possessions, similar to the league’s second-best offense, when he is on the court."
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