Sportscaster Rachel Nichols is an MVP voter, and she caused a bit of a stir with her comments about Los Angeles Lakers superstar Luka Doncic on the Open Floor podcast. Nichols was asked if she agrees with Austin Reaves that voters are overlooking Doncic for MVP, and she made it clear he won’t be first on her ballot.
“I mean, he’s been mentioned as in the MVP conversation for quite some time now,” Nichols said. “So, I don’t know how we could be overlooking him. Is he the top contender for MVP right now? No, he is not. Is the reason because you do have to play both sides of the ball for all eight months of the season? Yes, it is.
“I mean, he has definitely been improving,” Nichols continued. “I am the loudest voice that Luka is not the defensive liability that people think he is once he gets to the playoffs. He cares differently, he plays differently. He does not play that way in January, I’m sorry. And it is a full-season award, and it is for both sides of the ball. So, am I going to vote him my No. 1 for MVP? No. Is he going to be on my ballot? Absolutely.”
Doncic has played good defense for a while now, but Nichols says he just hasn’t put in enough effort over the course of the season to be No. 1. As you’d imagine, these comments didn’t go down too well with the Slovenian’s fans. One of them on X brought up Nichols’ comments from November 2025 about Doncic’s defense.
“I think Luka is ‘in the conversation,’ like we like to say, in that top three,” Nichols said. “He’s leading the league in scoring. He’s averaging nearly a triple-double. Defense has actually been solid… He’s had a five-steal game and a pair of four-steal games in a season that’s still relatively young, right?
“That’s three games out of the only 20 that we’re talking about that he’s had four or five-steal performances,” Nichols added. “That’s not nothing. I’m not putting him as No. 1. I’m just saying that this is a three-way conversation in my mind.”
The point being raised here, of course, is that Nichols thought Doncic was playing solid defense for quite a long stretch at the start of the season. The fact that she has now changed her tune hasn’t gone down well with his fans.
It has also been brought up that defense wasn’t an issue for Nichols in 2018 when she believed James Harden should win MVP. Here is what she had to say about Harden on The Jump back then.
“There’s really nothing any of these other guys can do to steal it away from him, and frankly, it’s been the case for a couple months now,” Nichols said. “There’s all the basic numbers we always lean on, right? Harden leads the league in scoring, he’s top three in assists, he’s got more three-pointers than anyone… okay, never gonna win Defensive Player of the Year, but he’s at least active enough now on that side of the ball, it’s not going to derail him.”
Harden was never really a good defender, but he would end up in first place on Nichols’ ballot in 2018 and won MVP. She focused on all the incredible things he was doing on offense for the Houston Rockets, something she isn’t doing now with Doncic. He has also played good defense for a fair bit now, but that isn’t being recognized, much to the frustration of his fans.
Rachel Nichols Reacts To Backlash
With a whole lot of backlash coming her way, Nichols felt compelled to defend herself on X.
“1) I still think Luka’s in the conversation and in fact have him ranked higher on my current MVP ballot than the majority of my peers (including my co-host). In fact, I have him ranked higher on my current ballot than the NBA’s own website does on theirs.
“2) As I said on our most recent pod, I think Luka’s defense is annually underrated in the playoffs. Preseason, I also picked the Lakers to finish at No. 3 in the West because of the sheer force of Luka, a take that was not exactly the most popular at the time.
“3) As I’ve said for YEARS, MVP voting can be frustrating because the criteria is so broad that what gets a guy elected one year wouldn’t get him elected another year. I’ve lobbied for a long time for the NBA to overhaul its award system, the way, say, the NFL has.
“4) Fan bases can get crazy sometimes over players they love, and I actually really dig that. Passion is what makes sports fun.”
The biggest issue when it comes to MVP is definitely that the criteria seem to change every season. Sometimes the award is given to the best player on the team with the best record. On other occasions, it is given to the player putting up incredible numbers on good teams, or to the player who is elevating a mediocre supporting cast.
Doncic falls in the second category among those three. He is averaging 33.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 1.7 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game for a Lakers team that is third in the West with a 50-26 record. Doncic has a good case to win MVP, and he shouldn’t be getting dismissed the way he has been by some of these voters.
