In what was probably the most disruptive year of his life and surely the most of his NBA career, Luka Dončić began the 2024-25 season looking to rebound from an NBA Finals defeat and take his Mavericks one step further to hang a banner for the organization that drafted him to being traded in the middle of the night to the Lakers in a monumental swap.
It was the type of trade people didn’t believe in the moment and could still barely grasp weeks later, with every picture or clip of Luka in a Lakers uniform still feeling like the photoshop fantasies of a fanbase whose penchant for placing opposing teams’ stars into those forum blue and gold jerseys is unrivaled across the entire league.
And if the trade wasn’t enough, Dončić lost over six weeks (22 games total) to a strained calf suffered on Christmas day — the longest injury absence of his career — leaving him sidelined not only for the final weeks he’d have been able to play with the Mavs but his first week with the Lakers. This all came also while dealing with the very public, but somehow still very anonymous, bashing on his way out of Dallas, questioning his conditioning and commitment to his body as the reasons for shipping him out.
When he finally did return, he was clearly not himself physically and was obviously still dealing with the mental effects of a life-altering trade. Through it all, as has been the case for his entire career, Luka wore his heart on his sleeve, showing everyone when he was happy, frustrated, or still a bit solemn after the deal as he worked his way back into shape — both mentally and physically — to the point where he began to resemble the player that’d been named to FirstTeam All-NBA the previous five seasons.
Of course, as this all happened, he came to a team that was trying to rework their identity on the fly to account for Dončić joining a team with two other primary ball handlers who just happened to be one of the best players ever in LeBron James and a rising Austin Reaves, whose own growth and development as a primary offensive player was being prioritized in new ways.
In the moment, there was understandable excitement. But hindsight, particularly after a first round playoff exist, also tells a story of why these first few months of Luka on the Lakers were both growing pains and the start of what many are hoping will be a long and even more fruitful partnership that will bring the banners Dončić was hoping to hang in Dallas to Los Angeles instead.
One way you know you have a superstar on your team is when, even when that player isn’t as productive as you’d hope or isn’t very efficient or has too many turnovers or misses what are totally makable shots, they still find a way to impact the game at a high level, make one or two mind-blowing plays, or both.
And, in a nutshell, that was Luka Dončić for the Lakers.
Don’t get me wrong, Luka had some amazingly productive, highly efficient games where he not only looked like the best player on the floor, but one of the best in the world, too. His 31-point, eight-rebound, and seven-assist night in a win at Denver was a masterclass in playing against the at-the-level and drop coverages the Nuggets deploy.
