{"id":315992,"date":"2026-04-09T18:14:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=315992"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:14:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:44:04","slug":"steve-nash-backs-luka-doncic-for-awards-despite-games-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/09\/steve-nash-backs-luka-doncic-for-awards-despite-games-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Nash backs Luka Doncic for awards despite games rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"FOR_target_content\">\n<div id=\"attachment_669206\" style=\"width: 2570px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-669206\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) argues a call through the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Miami Heat, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo\/Lynne Sladky)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>MANILA, Philippines\u2014NBA legend Steve believes that Los Angeles star Luka Doncic shouldn\u2019t end the 2025-26 season empty-handed.<\/p>\n<p>In an internet press conference on Tuesday, Nash said Doncic should give you the chance to win awards despite not meeting the league\u2019s games played quota.<\/p>\n<div id=\"billboard_article\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<i id=\"art_cont\" style=\"color:#85A7BF;\">Article continues after this commercial<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI feel Luka needs to be allowed to receive postseason awards,\u201d Nash said within the media call presented by NBA on Prime. \u201cHe needs to be an All-NBA player, he should give you the chance to receive whether it\u2019s an MVP or All-NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because it stands, Doncic is probably going ineligible to win any end-of-season awards after only playing 64 games, only a game in need of the quota of 65.<\/p>\n<p>Doncic is out of the regular season after suffering a Grade 2 left hamstring injury within the Lakers\u2019 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on April 4.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is where I feel it gets tricky, the rule wasn\u2019t brought in place to punish people for being injured, it was brought as much as punish the system for allowing guys to miss too many games to rest,\u201d Nash clarified. \u201cThat\u2019s not the case here.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"ztoop\">\n<i id=\"art_cont\" style=\"color:#85A7BF;\">Article continues after this commercial<\/i>\t\t  <\/p><\/div>\n<p>For the season, Doncic has averaged 33.5 points, 8.3 assists and seven.7 rebounds per game, along with his teammates stressing that he needs to be within the MVP conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nash, though, He has a distinct name in mind for the MVP plum.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, though, I feel Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander) is the MVP in totality based on the whole thing of the season. He\u2019s such an efficient scorer on a winning team,\u201d Nash said.<\/p>\n<div id=\"billboard_article\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<i id=\"art_cont\" style=\"color:#85A7BF;\">Article continues after this commercial<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n<p>For comparison, Gilgeous-Alexander is currently putting numbers of 31.3 points, 6.5 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) argues a call through the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Miami Heat, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo\/Lynne Sladky) MANILA, Philippines\u2014NBA legend Steve believes that Los Angeles star Luka Doncic shouldn\u2019t end the 2025-26 season empty-handed. In an internet press conference on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":315993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[1753,761,1201,601,1200,3302,1537,2390],"class_list":["post-315992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-awards","tag-backs","tag-doncic","tag-games","tag-luka","tag-nash","tag-rule","tag-steve"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315992"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315995,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315992\/revisions\/315995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}