Luka Doncic is defended by Jalen Brunson in the contentious Nikola Jokic MVP narrative.

Despite Luka Doncic being on the sideline due to a left calf strain, the chatter about the Dallas Mavericks is still flowing free as they’ve found a way to win two of their last three games without Doncic and Kyrie Irving in the lineup.

While Irving is listed as questionable for tomorrow’s game against the Denver Nuggets due to a back injury, Doncic’s return may still be some time away. He hasn’t been practicing since he suffered a calf strain on Christmas Day, and with him missing his 17th game of the season on Sunday afternoon, he is officially ineligible to win MVP or make an All-NBA Team

 was clear that this was going to be a major possibility when Doncic went down on Christmas, and even with him sidelined, there has been some general MVP chatter about him.

Brunson slams double standard in MVP voting between Doncic and Jokic

Not in the sense that he deserves the MVP this year, because even if he was eligible he hasn’t had as strong of a start to the season as we’ve seen in previous seasons, but more about how the MVP goalposts are consistently moving. Former Mavericks point guard and teammate of Doncic, Jalen Brunson, gave his take on Nikola Jokic’s case for MVP this year on the Roommates Show, comparing it to Doncic’s case last season

“[The Nuggets are] not seeded where they were last year, and people are still talking about him like being MVP,” Brunson said about Jokic. “Individually, he deserves it. But when Luka [Doncic] was averaging damn near triple-double, but [the Mavs] seed wasn’t where people wanted it to be, they were like, ‘Oh, he shouldn’t get MVP because of seeding.'”

Doncic’s biggest knock when he didn’t win MVP last year was that since his team wasn’t a top seed like Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he didn’t deserve the award. Despite having an undeniable case to win MVP in which he put up unbelievable stats and willed the Mavericks to an amazing finish at the end of the season, he finished behind Jokic and Gilgeous-Alexander in voting. This was a major shock to fans, and the most common argument used against him was that Dallas was the No. 5 seed.