Trail Blazers coach Micah Nori: Luka Doncic 'is the MVP right now'

It has only been a couple of weeks, but so far this season, Luka Doncic has been playing at a truly special level. He's averaging 40.1 points, 7.8 rebounds, 7.7 assists and 1.7 steals a game, and he hasn't exactly been an inefficient gunner. He's shooting 49.8% overall, 41.9% from 3-point range and 87.3% from the free throw line, even though he's leading everyone in attempts and makes per game from the field, 3-point range and the foul line.

There is now some talk that Doncic, at least right now, is the best basketball player in the world and arguably the frontrunner to win this season's NBA MVP. It seems as if the national media has already penciled in the San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama to win the award, but if the Los Angeles Lakers somehow win enough games, Doncic could very well be in position to take it home instead.

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Micah Nori got an up-close and personal look at the Doncic show on Friday. His team was able to take a 16-point lead over L.A. in Friday's game, but Doncic started to get himself going late in the second quarter. He outscored the Trail Blazers by himself 20-15 in the third quarter, and he finished with 53 points as the Lakers notched a 124-118 victory.

Nori couldn't help but give the Slovenian his flowers.

“I don’t know, but it looks to me, this is the best shape I’ve ever seen him in,” Nori said before Friday night’s matchup. “What I mean by that is back in the day — and again, we didn’t have a whole lot of success because he beat us in the Western Conference finals — but it was like, pick him up full court, you know hee’s gonna play a lot of minutes, wear him down and then later in the game, you can maybe switch onto him and then he might have a harder time running around people. But I don’t see that. He’s playing at an elite level. And if you let him go left, the stepback is deadly. If you give him drop to his right hand, he can do anything in the world: find corners, he can finish, he can shoot.

“But to me, if I were to answer it very simply watching his games, it looks to me like he’s in elite shape, he's playing with a great amount of confidence, he’s got shooters around him and he has a rolling big. So for him, it’s a perfect offensive storm. He is the MVP right now. Hands down.”

This was Doncic's second 50-point game of the season, and the fourth game in a row he reached the 40-point mark. Even more impressively, he is making scoring 40 points look like just another night at the office for him.

As a result, the Lakers are 8-2, and Friday's win allowed them to overtake Portland for the best record in the Western Conference. They will start a four-game road trip on Sunday by taking on the Detroit Pistons, who are 6-2 and rank first in defensive rating. Doncic is listed as questionable for that contest due to low back tightness.

This article originally appeared on Lakers Wire: Trail Blazers coach Micah Nori: Luka Doncic 'is the MVP right now'

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