DALLAS — Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic added another accolade to his career portfolio on Thursday night: an ESPY.
The NBA's reigning scoring champ was awarded Best NBA Player. ESPN announced the award with the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation before the ESPYs started. Doncic was up against Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (who beat Doncic for MVP) and Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum.
Doncic finished the 2023-24 season with 33.9 points per game, 9.2 rebounds per game and 9.8 assists per game.
Doncic had a historic performance in the postseason while leading the Mavericks to the NBA Finals. He finished the postseason as the NBA's leader in points (635), rebounds (208) and assists (178). He's only the second player in NBA history to finish the postseason as the leader in all three of those categories. It also happened last year — when Denver's Nikola Jokic pulled off the feat.
Doncic also joined another very small club, that being players to score 3,000 points in a single season. His 28 points in the season's finale, Game 5 against the Boston Celtics, gave him 3,005 this season, including the playoffs.
He became the 11th player to do that. Michael Jordan had 10 such seasons, Wilt Chamberlain had five and nine other players — Bob McAdoo, Elgin Baylor, James Harden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Rick Barry, Shaquille O’Neal and now Doncic — have each done it once.
After the NBA Finals, Doncic went overseas to try and help Slovenia qualify for the Paris Olympics. Doncic and Slovenia were eliminated by the Giannis Antetokounmpo-led Greece team in qualifying.
The Mavericks have spent their offseason looking to build around Doncic and his backcourt running mate, Kyrie Irving. Those additions include four-time NBA Champion Klay Thompson from the Golden State Warriors, Naji Marshall and Quentin Grimes. The Mavs three additions were introduced earlier this week:
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