Mavericks guard Luka Doncic and Hawks guard Dejounte Murray have been named the NBA’s Players of the Week, the league announced on Monday (via Twitter).
MVP candidate Doncic, who won for the Western Conference, averaged 32.5 points, 11.0 rebounds, 9.5 assists and 1.8 steals on .512/.442/.712 shooting in four games last week. He helped guide Dallas to a 4-0 record to end the month of March, and the Mavs have moved up to the No. 5 seed in the West with a 45-29 record.
Doncic, the West’s Player of the Month for February, won the weekly award two out of four times last month, making him a very strong contender to win the monthly award again for March, notes Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News (Twitter link). The perennial All-NBA member earned his fourth weekly award in 2023/24, which leads the NBA.
Murray, meanwhile, averaged 28.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 10.3 assists and 1.8 steals on .438/.326/.600 shooting in four appearances last week. Atlanta went 3-1 in those contests — including a pair of victories over the first-place Celtics — and is currently 34-40, the No. 10 seed in the East.
Jalen Green, LeBron James and Victor Wembanyama were the other nominees in the West, per the NBA (Twitter link), while Giannis Antetokounmpo, Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and Cam Thomas were nominated in the East.
Not sure which is more difficult… keeping a championship winning team hungry enough the next season during the regular season like Jokic, or keeping Kyrie’s head on straight while he’s the clear 2nd option, for an entire season like Doncic.
Love Shai’s progress and I think his ceiling is even higher, but he is a distant third in this MVP race.
Despite missing time, Embiid still the leader for unnecessary minutes spent on the floor this season. Any of the 3 MVP guys above are so much more fun to watch in what they bring to the game of basketball. He’s just so soft and fragile, he reminds me of single-ply toilet paper.
These guys both huge parts of 2 of the best & worst trades in recent Hawks history (& linked by a pair of 2nd rd picks that we still owe the Spurs). I love Trae Young and Cam Reddish but we clearly should have just kept Luka & this was extremely obv at the time as well… Getting DJ from SA in exchange for a couple of 1sts & a couple of 2nds, none of which will have changed hands until after DJ’s 3rd season with us, has been a huge success. He’s been playing at an elite level on both sides of the ball & crucially he makes Trae expendable. Adding whatever we get for Trae to DJ/Bogdan/Dre/Jalen, our top5 center duo & our young guys (AJ, Bufkin & our 2 top15 picks in this draft) won’t correct the Luka mistake but it should have us in great shape going forward
I don’t think there is ever gonna be a way to clear up that Luka mistake…
But if the Hawks can get a decent package for Trae they’ll have themselves a decent top 5 team instead of a play in team… As there is a solid core to build around…