The Whiteboard: Luka Doncic and the Lakers are going places

Nico Harrison became the NBA's greatest villain overnight.

We are three weeks removed from the trade deadline and it still feels like a mirage watching LeBron James catch touchdown passes from Luka Doncic every other night. The Los Angeles Lakers acquired a generational talent at the front end of his prime, all because the Dallas Mavericks couldn't handle a few beers with their NBA Finals run.

Doncic and the Mavs were in the Finals last season, folks. Last season. There is recent history to disprove the notion that Doncic cannot lead a contender. Dallas couldn't get over the hump against a historically good Celtics team, but... that's not a reason to blow it up. The Mavs appeared ready for another deep postseason run this season, but opted to build around an older, more injury-prone Anthony Davis instead, all because they feared Doncic might develop durability issues by the time he is Davis' current age.

Anxiety over the future led the Mavs to go all-in on the present, but in a galaxy-brain fashion that derailed their immediate title odds. It's one of the most impressively dumb front office decisions in NBA history.

Now Dallas is in the same conference as Doncic for the next decade, assuming he works out a long-term extension with Los Angeles in the months or years to come. They will never live it down.

The early returns on Doncic in LA have been overwhelmingly positive, and he isn't even up to full speed yet. Godspeed, Mavericks fans. This won't get any easier.

Luka Doncic has the Lakers feeling like a real contender in the West

Doncic and the Lakers took a few games to get their feet under them. We can gloss over losses to Utah and Charlotte as necessary growing pains. Now the whole league is on notice after four straight wins over Portland, Denver, Dallas, and Minnesota.

JJ Redick has gone full sicko mode, eschewing sleep in favor of hammering out well-laid game plans to maximzie Los Angeles' many strengths and mitigate its more pressing weaknesses. The Denver game was a prime example of this.

Denver has been punking the Lakers for years now. Los Angeles' last two seasons have ended with dispiriting losses to the Nuggets in the playoffs. The Lakers don't really have a starting-caliber center on the roster after the Mark Williams trade fell through. Jokic was supposed to take Jaxson Hayes' lunch money and remind us of LA's mortality, even with Doncic on the floor.

Instead, the Lakers swarmed Jokic on defense and put the Nuggets in the hurt locker, winning 123-100 in one of their best all-around performances since Frank Vogel was head coach. The Darvin Ham malaise is but a distant memory. Redick has real ideas for how this team can work. It helps that he is intimately familiar with half the roster at this point. Doncic and Dorian Finney-Smith are former teammates. LeBron is a former podcast co-host, where they did nothing but talk strategy for hours on end. Don't be shocked when Redick gets Coach of the Year votes at season's end. He has proven the skeptics wrong. The dude's a real coach.

Minnesota was another tough opponent on Thursday night. The Timberwolves have been on the upswing of late and, again, that is a theoretically tough matchup on paper. LA is playing a bunch of small-ball out of necessity; the Wolves are a big, bruising team built to win on physicality and sheer overwhelming mass. It did not work. The Lakers found a workaround, holding Minnesota to 102 points and frustrating Anthony Edwards to the point of two technical fouls and an ejection.

Doncic has yet to achieve true nuclear detonation since arriving in LA. The Mavs blitzed him ceaselessly and made life difficult on offense. He scored 19 points on 6-of-17 shooting in that game, but also dropped 12 assists and set a season-high with 15 rebounds. He only scored 21 points on 6-of-20 shooting against Minnesota, but reminded us that he can do stuff like this.

What is concerning for other teams aspiring to contention in the West is how dominant and connected the Lakers feel without Doncic in peak form. Just his gravity has changed things dramatically for the Lakers' offense. LeBron looks rejuvenated. He's defending his tail off and benefitting from all the easy setups Doncic provides. Austin Reaves, meanwhile, is making the leap.

Those of us concerned about Reaves' place in the offensive hierarchy after the Doncic trade were thinking about it the wrong way. He's torching teams' third or fourth-best defenders and finding wide-open lanes to the hoop as defenses converge on LA's two All-NBA fulcrums.

There is no "right" way to defend the Lakers

This Lakers offense is the real deal. We shall see how the defense holds up in the playoffs — it's still fair to wonder about Jaxson Hayes as a starting five — but L.A. threatens to smoke teams on the other end. There's really no good way to get a handle on this beast Nico Harrison awakened.

Doncic demands multiple bodies at all levels of the floor. The reason Dallas was so successful last season is because Kyrie Irving had a field day attacking tilted defenses once Doncic passed out of double teams on the perimeter. LeBron is even more dangerous driving the lane, and he is also one of the most brilliant playmakers this game has ever seen. The Lakers are built around two all-time passers who can collapse the defense and make the right decision each and every time.

To quote Dorian Finney-Smith:

"I'm back getting wide-open shots... Now I got that time and be butt-naked, wide open."

That Reaves is quietly emerging as one of the NBA's most prolific slashers — a quick, shifty guard who can put his head down and burst through gaps like a running back — is a cherry on top. It's impossible to keep this Lakers offense out of motion. Somehow, some way, they're going to get a step downhill and force your defense into rotations. From there, it's done. You're cooked.

Dorian Finney-Smith, Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent. Even the supporting cast feels perfectly attuned to what the Lakers need. Finney-Smith is a premium defensive stopper on the wing. Hachimura can hit spot-up 3s and leverage his physicality on finishes in the paint. Vincent toggles effortlessly between on and off-ball duties, selflessly setting the table and bleeding into Redick's scheme as needed.

The center position remains a gaping void, and it could prove catastrophic once the playoffs arrive. But there are a lot of reasons to believe in this Lakers team. We know what Doncic and James are capable of in the playoffs. If LA can concoct the right defensive scheme to take advantage of its athleticism and switchability on the perimeter, maximizing what length it does have, the offense is championship-caliber. It just is.

OKC remains a powerhouse in the West, and Denver, Memphis, and Houston all have their merits. Just don't be shocked if the Lakers are pushing for the NBA Finals a lot sooner than fans expected, much to the chagrin of a jilted Mavs front office.

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NBA news roundup:

• Stephen Curry dropped 56 points with 12 made 3s in Thursday's win over the Magic. Golden State is 7-1 since Jimmy Butler entered the lineup. Things feel... different. The Warriors, after years of aimless wandering, are back in the contenders circle.
• Joel Embiid has received regular injections in his swollen left knee throughout the season, per ESPN's Shams Charania. The former MVP has been out of the lineup these past couple games as Philly explores new options to manage the 7-footer's persistent knee pain. Right now, however, season-ending surgery is not a guarantee.
• Zion Williamson recorded his first ever triple-double in a win over the Suns, posting 27 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists. This Pelicans season is lost, but with Trey Murphy on the rise, New Orleans feels like a sleeping giant in 2025-26... assuming health prevails.

The Minnesota Timberwolves have found their secret weapon

Minnesota has spent the majority of this campaign treading water, but there are positive signs. Anthony Edwards is coming into his own as a leader without Karl-Anthony Towns in the locker room. This Wolves team is not as dangerous as it was last season, but they still play with a brute physicality few opponents can match.

What the Wolves are lacking, however, is dependable shot creators not named Anthony Edwards. Mike Conley has lost a step. Julius Randle can replace some of Towns' scoring in the paint, but he compromises the Wolves' spacing in a big way. Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert obviously depend on those around them to generate quality looks.

Too often, Edwards has been asked (or forced) to play hero ball as Minnesota's offense stalls late in the games.

The solution is obvious, at least in the short term. The Wolves need to lean on the rooks. The Wolves traded up in the 2024 draft to acquire Rob Dillingham for this express purpose. He's a bubbly point guard with three-level scoring chops and a wicked knack for passing out of pick-and-rolls.

Perhaps the more valuable rookie right now, however, is 27th overall pick Terrence Shannon Jr. The 24-year-old has slowly worked his way into the rotation of late. He put up 25 points, five rebounds, and two assists in 29 minutes against the Lakers on Thursday, hitting 9-of-15 from the field.

Shannon's 3-point shooting will be a swing factor moving forward, but he's a bursty athlete and a relentless driver. He puts constant pressure on the rim and has zero trouble getting to his spots as a scorer.

There's a reason contenders typically lean toward older prospects, especially late in the draft. Shannon was quite the accomplished star at Illinois. He was one of college basketball's best perimeter scorers, and he was much further along than many of his peers. Don't be shocked if he's a permanent fixture in the Wolves rotation moving forward. They need his skill set.