Luka Doncic is doing everything an MVP is supposed to do — except climb the MVP ladder. Just last week, the Los Angeles Lakers star jumped from No. 4 to No. 2 in the race, looking like a legitimate frontrunner. Since then, he’s only gotten better.

Even with a 16th technical foul (which will cost him a one-game suspension), Doncic hasn’t slowed down: 32 points against the Pistons, followed by back-to-back 40-point games.

His latest was a 41-point explosion in a 116-99 win over the Brooklyn Nets on 15-for-25 shooting, including five 3s, plus eight rebounds, three assists, three steals, and a block. It’s part of a ridiculous March stretch where the Slovenian is averaging 37.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 7.1 assists per game.

Naturally, you’d expect that kind of run to push him to No. 1 — or at worst keep him firmly at No. 2. Instead, he dropped to fourth, sitting behind Victor Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Nikola Jokic.

“Yeah, hopefully,” Doncic said postgame when asked about his MVP chances. “But the better I play, the more I go down in ratings. So I don’t know what more I can do.”

Doncic is leading the league in scoring at 33.7 points per game, while also operating as an elite playmaker with 8.2 assists per night.

He has played 62 games and has the Lakers at No. 3 in the West following a 13-2 March surge, which was largely on his back. Yet before the Brooklyn game, he found out that he had dropped two places. His 41-point night felt like a direct response to a ranking that simply doesn’t add up.

To be clear, everyone ahead of him is having an MVP-caliber season. But after spending years just behind players like SGA and Jokic, this felt like the moment for Doncic to finally break through. Instead, Wembanyama leapfrogged the entire field to take over as the new frontrunner.

The MVP narrative problem is becoming impossible to ignore

Even with this dominant March run, Doncic’s first full season in L.A. hasn’t been perfect.

There were the usual growing pains: defensive lapses, occasional conditioning issues, chemistry with LeBron James and Austin Reaves, and the L.A. spotlight. 

The narrative kicked into high gear during tough stretches, but a 27-year-old averaging a near-triple-double while carrying his team night after night doesn’t need to be perfect everywhere.

In March alone, he dropped 60 points against the Miami Heat, 51 against the Chicago Bulls, and had four other games in which he recorded 40+ points. That hot streak pushed the Lakers into home-court advantage territory, just weeks after they were flirting with the play-in.

Yet the result has been a puzzling drop in rankings — and an indirect message that it still isn’t enough.

“He continues to drop in the MVP race, which is insane to me,” teammate Reaves said. “I guess it doesn’t really matter, maybe he’s gotta score 60, I don’t know.”

Reaves is having a career year, all thanks to the impact Doncic has brought to the floor as the primary handler. He joins in the frustration of many fans who feel that the Slovenian superstar is due an MVP award. 

There is no real logical explanation, because a three-point loss to the Detroit Pistons, who are No. 1 in the East, can’t be described as a bad week.

It increasingly feels like Doncic is being held to early-season narratives — particularly around defense — and those labels tend to stick, no matter what happens later.

A good argument could be made that one good month doesn’t decide the entire season. The only real difference? The Lakers weren’t in the middle of a long winning streak anymore.

In the past, the NBA has seen some late hot streaks define the MVP award. 

In 2017, Russell Westbrook won MVP for his historic triple-double season, even with the Thunder finishing as a sixth seed. The numbers carried the argument.

But the metric for judgment suddenly appears to be different with Doncic, and when the case is this close, perception often trumps production. 

His efficiency — 47.6% from the field and 36.6% from three — shows he’s not just a volume scorer, but an elite one, especially given the defensive attention he faces every night.

Doncic is elevating the Lakers on both ends of the floor. The only question now is whether the numbers will eventually outweigh the narrative — or if the decision has already been made.