WITH LESS THAN 30 minutes until tipoff before the Los Angeles Lakers’ preseason game against the Golden State Warriors last week, Luka Doncic was the only player on the court.
While both rosters readied themselves in the locker rooms at T-Mobile Arena, Doncic — given the night off by Lakers coach JJ Redick — used every bit of the hardwood for a basket-to-basket battle against three of L.A. assistant coaches.
In an exercise designed to tap into the mix of ferociousness and joy that Redick says is the optimal emotional plane for the 27-year-old star, Doncic was not given an inch by Lakers head video coordinator Michael Wexler.
The 5-foot-11 Wexler, a gritty guard who earned a spot on the Pepperdine basketball team, was armed with a foam-covered stick to bat at the arms and prod at the body of the six-time All-Star.
Lakers player development coach Justin Robinson — standing 6-foot-9 with a sturdy frame, like his “Admiral” dad — waited for the right time to crowd Doncic with a double team.
And then there was Lakers assistant coach Greg St. Jean, who, though he was technically on Doncic’s team in case he needed to pass out of the double to reset the offensive possession, occasionally broke the rules and blitzed Doncic, too.
One trip down, Doncic tried a pull-up 3. The next, he got Wexler and Robinson to bite with a hesitation dribble and blew by them for a lay-in.
On another, he planted himself at the foul line and launched the one-legged fadeaway jumper that fueled the Hall of Fame career of his former Dallas Mavericks teammate Dirk Nowitzki.
After half-a-dozen full-court possessions, Doncic caught his breath and shot 45-foot bombs from the sideline.
When he airballed one, Wexler snickered.
“It’s not an easy shot, OK?” Doncic barked back.
After the break, Doncic blazed down the left side of the court and veered back through the lane with a right-hand dribble when Wexler cut him off.
With all of his momentum taking him toward the sideline, Doncic put the ball in his left hand, extended that arm back toward the basket and flipped in a finger roll over Wexler’s head, eliciting an “oooohhhh” from the hundreds of fans in the lower bowl.
After the bucket, Doncic flipped his middle finger in front of Wexler’s face.
Retribution.
Lakers president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka watched all of this unfold from the bench, sitting next to Doncic’s physiotherapist, Javy Barrio.
If it’s the coaches’ responsibility to motivate Doncic with creative drills like this 15-minute pregame gauntlet in Las Vegas, it’s Barrio’s job to keep him healthy, after a late-season hamstring injury sidelined him for the playoffs last spring.
Which leaves Pelinka tasked with building a team around Doncic’s spectacular talent — he secured the second scoring title of his career last season by topping 40 points 16 times — that can contend for a championship.
Doncic’s pregame display in Vegas left little doubt that he’ll be as exciting as ever to watch this season.
But there are still major questions facing this Lakers team, with the season about to open Wednesday against the Warriors (7 p.m. PT, ESPN).
Doncic is undoubtedly the best player on the Lakers. But is he ready to lead them?
With LeBron James signed with the Philadelphia 76ers in free agency this summer, the pathway was cleared for Doncic to officially become the next face of the franchise.
His work began almost immediately.
He provided feedback to the front office as it built out the roster, notably requesting an “A-list center,” sources told ESPN.
“When you can co-create something that’s powerful with a star like Luka, and retrofit a team around him, then there’s buy-in,” Pelinka said last month. “We love those roundtable discussions where ideas are shared.”
And then he footed the bill to host the entire team for a four-day minicamp and bonding trip in his hometown of Ljubljana, Slovenia, in August.
“I think there is a natural chemistry with this group that I think started over the summer,” Redick said during training camp, crediting Doncic’s role in fostering it. Doncic has given the team reason to believe in him.
He has maintained a workout and dietary regimen that resulted in an improved physique that he showed off on the cover of Men’s Health in summer 2025.
“When you got a guy like Luka, going into the game you feel like you can beat anybody,” Lakers backup center Kevon Looney said. “We feel like if we do our job, he’s going to do his job and he’s going to clinch us the game.”
Redick told ESPN he already empowered Doncic to take control last season.
“There were really two dynamics for us,” Redick told ESPN. “We like to use the term ‘partnership.’ I don’t want him to view me as an authoritarian or anything like that. It’s a partnership. It’s open dialogue and all that stuff, which I think he likes.
“And then the second part … your best offensive players should feel a level of freedom and a level of autonomy to be creative, but they’ve got to do that within the structure of the team and the offense.”
Doncic, if he stays healthy, provides stable, star-level production. It’s the rest of the roster where questions remain.
0:18
Luka Doncic splashes a logo trey for the Lakers
Do they belong in the championship conversation?
Doncic told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on media day that he believes the Lakers can win it all this season.
“I feel like I say this stuff a lot, but if you don’t think we can win a championship, then you shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I’m always going to believe. If I don’t believe, nobody believes. So I need to show that I believe — which I honestly do — and go from there.”
Outside projections aren’t as optimistic. ESPN’s Basketball Power Index gives them just an 11% chance to make the Western Conference finals.
The competition — from the champion New York Knicks and Western Conference champ San Antonio Spurs; to 2025 champion Oklahoma City Thunder; to other recent champs in the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets; to the revamped teams in Philadelphia, Minnesota and Miami — is stiff.
But even leaving those teams out of it, is it realistic to bring up title talk?
Their new team not only has little experience together, but some key, new pieces have little experience on the sport’s biggest stage. L.A.’s four big-ticket free agents in Walker Kessler (four years, $130 million), Quentin Grimes (four years, $60 million), Sandro Mamukelashvili (four years, $52 million) and Collin Sexton (two years, $27 million) have started just six playoff games in their careers combined.
Redick shares his star’s confidence in the group, however.
“Unless somebody blatantly tells me that we’re not trying to win, I think that every year,” Redick said of his belief in the Lakers’ chances. “I think because of our talent, because of our fit, because of our depth, I really like our team.”
Is Walker Kessler enough to shore up their shoddy defense?
He’ll certainly help.
L.A. mortgaged what was left of its future to land the 7-foot-2 big man, sending two unprotected future first-round picks and two pick swaps to the Utah Jazz in the deal.
“If you look at what you could potentially get in the draft or what is potentially going to come in free agency, those centers just don’t exist,” Pelinka said last month.
“So when the opportunity comes and you have a superstar like Luka in your building, you have to seize it. And we feel very comfortable and confident about that decision and what we put into it.”
The Lakers were willing to pay the monumental price to fix their most pressing problem: their defense.
L.A. finished 20th in defense last season, allowing 115.5 points per 100 possessions, a regression from Redick’s first year when the Lakers finished 17th.
The appeal of Kessler, 25, beyond being on the same career timeline as Doncic and the 28-year-old Austin Reaves, is his skill set, which should allow Redick to employ a base defense he is more comfortable with.
“We have the guys that can pick up full court and guard and be disruptive and then we have Walker back there,” Redick said of this year’s team, which also includes Sexton, Ziaire Williams and Matisse Thybulle.
The Lakers switched 40.6% of the time against on-ball screens in the last two seasons under Redick, the highest rate in the league over that time, according to GeniusIQ.
Kessler rarely played that way in Utah, switching only 10% of the time in his career against on-ball screens and playing in a drop scheme 52% of the time.
Kessler’s 2.4 blocks per game career average is the second best in the league since 2022-23, behind only the Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama.
And in that time, he also ranks in the top 10 in opponent field goal percentage among the 41 players to contest at least 2,000 shots within five feet of the basket, according to ESPN research.
“He’s a great defensive player,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Kessler. “It’s not very wise to go in and challenge him at the rim. … He’s one of the best rim protectors and one of the best defensive centers in the league.”
The Lakers look different, but are they improved?
The Lakers are the first team in league history to win a playoff series and then lose all five starters from that group the following season.
James, Rui Hachimura, Marcus Smart, Luke Kennard and Deandre Ayton helped fuel the Lakers’ late-season run: from the end of February through all of March, the team went 16-2 and looked like one of the best in the league.
Losing those players means losing a combined 59 years of experience, too.
“I don’t want to compare the teams or the rosters, and I really have not thought about last year’s team,” Redick told ESPN.
Instead, Redick believes this roster features more optionality.
“What excites me about this roster is there are elements of modern basketball that we just haven’t been able to do,” Redick told ESPN. “Even with Smart, Smart at his age, can’t pick up full court every single possession. And he was the only person that was even capable of doing that on our team last year to begin with. So just that alone, that’s exciting.
“I think Walker has the potential to be one of the best rim [protection] guys, and when he’s played, he’s been that for the most part. … So, it’s more just being excited about this team, than comparing the two teams.”
0:19
Austin Reaves drains 3 vs. Golden State Warriors
What is the backup backcourt situation?
Doncic and Reaves have already proved to be a dangerous backcourt pair, combining to average 56.8 points and 13.8 assists per game last season.
But they won’t be on the court 48 minutes per game and, based on their recent injury history, they won’t be in the lineup for all 82 games, either.
And with Sexton sidelined for all of the preseason with a right calf issue, Redick’s other backcourt options have not performed well.
“That fourth ball handler for us hasn’t been great,” Redick said this past week.
This preseason, Jaden Hardy averaged 2.6 turnovers and 1.2 assists and shot 41% (30.4% from 3) in his 14.2 minutes per game; Bronny James averaged 2.4 turnovers and 2.8 assists and shot 25% (12.5% from 3) in 16.4 minutes per game; and two-way guard Chris Manon averaged 1.6 turnovers and 0.8 assists and shot 44.4% (25% from 3) in 12.4 minutes per game.
James, for his part, has been limited by a quad contusion he suffered just before the start of training camp, sources told ESPN, and Redick added that the third-year guard has often shared the court with training camp invitees, rather than rotation players and noted how James finished last season as a playoff contributor.
But the hole behind the Lakers’ star backcourt could be the part of the roster Pelinka will have to fortify the most if the Lakers seriously plan to contend.
