Former three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas has high hopes for Dallas superstar Luka Doncic this upcoming season.
Doncic has been an MVP frontrunner for the last few seasons, but hasn’t yet won a trophy.
Now that Klay Thompson is on his team, Arenas thinks now is Luka’s best chance to take out the award.
“I don’t want to put this type of pressure on him,” Arenas said on Gil’s Arena recently. “I’d be surprised if he don’t average a triple-double. If you were averaging that many assists with what you had and now you’ve got a guy who can catch and shoot so some of your assists will come without even any effort. You should average a triple-double. And he will probably be the number one candidate for MVP. He’s going to do something that hasn’t been done for a few years and that’s average a triple-double.”
Even without Thompson as his teammate, Luka averaged 33.9 points, 9.2 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game across 70 appearances in the 2023-24 regular season.
He finished third in MVP voting behind Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Doncic was also the main contributing factor to the Mavs’ title run, pushing them to the Finals for the first time since 2011.
At only 25 years of age, it would seem Luka is yet to reach his ceiling in the NBA, so with a sharp-shooter like Thompson on his side dishing out assists, there’s no reason Doncic’s stats can’t improve.
The only two players in NBA history to have ever averaged a triple double are Oscar Robertson in 1962 and Russell Westbrook in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
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