What's Wright - Luka Doncic UNSTOPPABLE, Lakers star MVP? SGA or Jokic best in world? USMNT struggles | Nick Wright

Rare Wednesday drop of What’s Wright with me a little rusty after a family swing through the Bahamas, where I briefly thought I shredded my ACL chasing Deanna in a kids’ splash park and somehow walked it off five minutes later.

Rate, subscribe, hit the bell, because this week we’re running Wednesday, Thursday, Friday shows, and yes, I donated plenty to the resort sportsbook and casino.

Quick hits before we dive in: Mahomes at the Royals opener, a brutal ninth-inning meltdown against Atlanta, Cuban grumbling about his sale, and a Luka stat nugget that sent the timeline spinning.

We’ve got about two weeks left, and the MVP race is tight: SGA leads, then Wemby, Luka, and Jokic. Is this the greatest MVP race ever, and why is Luka’s case so divisive?

Greatest ever is a hard no; 1962 still owns that crown with Wilt going 50 and 26, Oscar averaging a triple-double, and Russell running away with it.

On Luka, people are rewriting expectations and acting like his surge just started, when he’s been elite most months and his team has massively outperformed preseason projections.

The defense knock is overstated; he has bad clips, but no honest metric says he’s one of the league’s worst, and defensive rebounding matters more in advanced models than people admit.

Do his rebounds help balance his defensive critique at all?

They do; boards end possessions, and a lot of metrics weight that heavily, which is why bigs like Jokic grade so well defensively on paper.

Historically, MVP skews around 90 percent offense, 10 percent defense, with rare exceptions like peak Russell; moving the goalposts now because Wemby is a force isn’t consistent.

Wemby’s defensive impact is monstrous, but giving extra MVP credit for playing far fewer minutes than the other candidates makes no sense; this isn’t a hypothetical award.

Luka’s offensive load clears almost everyone by a wide margin, his team’s defense has climbed, and he’s a proven playoff killer; pretending he has no case is wild.

Here are the marquee matchups left: OKC plays the Lakers twice and Denver once, Denver gets the Spurs twice and OKC once, and the Spurs face Denver twice.

SGA probably wins by stacking first and second-place votes, while Wemby could split across first through fourth; Jokic will get love, but voter dynamics and team vibes temper a fourth MVP.

Fans, players, and coaches are salty about SGA’s free throws; what’s driving the outrage?

It’s a three-part storm: his stiff-arm craft creates contact he often gets away with, he draws whistles on light bumps going downhill, and his teammates push the defensive envelope hard, which rubs people raw.

They’re regular-season killers, but playoff officiating could mute some of that edge, and if the bracket sets up, America’s likely riding with Denver against them.

If SGA didn’t have that foul-drawing weapon, would he still rate this high in MVP talk?

He’s too smart and skilled not to adapt; I still have Jokic as the best player alive, but I think Luka’s better than SGA even if SGA might snag MVP and has already won a title.

USMNT lost two to zero to Portugal in a friendly with the World Cup two months out; can we fix this in time?

Soccer gatekeepers, be welcoming—tons of us are locked in—and right now the US looks rough, got hammered by Belgium, blanked by Portugal, the coach basically said we lack top-tier talent, and the draw just got tougher with the wildcard we didn’t want.

The standard should be to win the group and the first knockout, but today we look like underdogs to even make noise.

As an honorary Italian, any thoughts on likely missing another World Cup?

For a four-time champion to crash out again after a century of elite runs is staggering; it’s the most mortifying decade I can remember for a true soccer power.

April Fools note: the new Browns coach missed the coaches photo getting a haircut; who would they actually hold the shot for?

They’d wait for Andy Reid without blinking, probably McVay too, which makes skipping the hold for a newbie feel like a subtle diss.

Mailbag update: send questions live on YouTube, drop them in comments, or post on Twitter; producers load up a list, I pick my favorites, and we hit them Friday.

Good to be back; tomorrow we’ll hit that Jalen Hurts piece, Lamar’s offseason, and a suddenly massive Western Conference race—talk to you then.