LeBron James is now a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, which means a lot of things for a lot of different teams (i.e., the Cleveland Cavaliers need to look at themselves in the mirror). But for the sake of this article, it means that LeGM is no longer running the show in Los Angeles, and the Lakers are officially Luka Dončić's team.
To be fair to Dončić, he has been the Lakers' best on-court player since the moment he was traded for Anthony Davis back in 2024. However, with how large James' presence tends to loom over the places he frequents (and rightfully so, for the record), it was hard for Dončić to ever truly take ownership. But now, with James gone, Dončić is ready to make his mark.
Luka Doncic is the face of the Lakers, and he knows it
In a recent iteration of his invaluable Substack, NBA Insider Marc Stein revealed that Dončić flew out the entire team to his home country (Slovenia) in order to get in some team bonding.
I love this move from Dončić. As consumers of the NBA, we often over-index on things that occur outside of the basketball court. However, there is something to the human element of the game, and the importance of being connected to the individuals you are working with to reach the ultimate goal of winning it all.
One of my favorite examples of this is Aaron Gordon flying out to Serbia to surprise his superstar teammate Nikola Jokić the summer before they won the NBA Championship. Is this the reason they won it all? Probably not. But did it help to solidify the bond between the two and make them even more resilient when faced with adversity? Heck yes.
This Lakers team definitely needs to build team chemistry quickly. This offseason has seen them acquire a bunch of new faces. They signed-and-traded for Walker Kessler, and signed Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Matisse Thybulle, and Zaire Williams. They also added Jaden Hardy in a trade, and Klay Thompson may be coming to town as well.
Team bonding is a good start, but Lakers have dragons to slay in the West
Not only does Dončić have to worry about incorporating all these new pieces, but he still has to find a way to overcome the two goliaths in the Western Conference: the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.
Sportsbooks (like FanDuel) view those two teams as the clear favorites to win it all, and if Dončić hopes to earn his first ever NBA title next season, he will almost surely have to get through at least one (if not both) of those formidable foes.
Will Dončić's efforts to bring the new squad together be worthwhile? Who knows. But one thing is for certian, Dončić finally gets to be the leading man on the most storied franchise in NBA history, and he is doing everything he can to capitalize on this opportunity.
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