The Los Angeles Lakers were gifted a top-five player out of thin air when Luka Doncic arrived on their doorstep on one fateful night in February of 2025. Ever since then, Rob Pelinka and company have been playing catch-up in trying to adjust to life with the Slovenian superstar.
2024-25 was always going to be a wash. Sure, there was a better version of LeBron James that year to share the load with Doncic at the top. However, that team was not constructed for Luka at all, and there would inevitably be no way to overcome that aspect of the equation. Chalk that one up as a lost season.
The 2025 offseason offered an opportunity for a slight reset, but for the most part, there was a general consensus ahead of the 2025-26 campaign that it would be a gap year for the Lakers. The consensus after the season was that of Los Angeles overachieving and being closer to contention than initially prognosed.
It only really took a handful of additions who were more Luka-friendly players to truly make an impact. That is why a full offseason retool around Doncic is an exciting thought for Lakers fans. The last thing they want to hear, again, is conversations about another gap year.
Taking another gap year in Luka Doncic's prime would be disastrous
And yet, the dreaded gap year idea is somehow back in talking points around the Lakers. Sam Vecenie and Bryce Simon discussed the matter on an episode of the Game Theory Podcast that feared an offseason preview for Los Angeles.
"I don't know that a one-year gap year is the worst idea necessarily," Vecenie said. "But it is just a one-year gap year in the middle of Luka's prime, which also doesn't feel totally ideal to me."
Lacking ideality is a considerable undersell on Vecenie's part. After being fed the idea of two lost seasons with Doncic in the mix already, another one of those would be woefully wasteful of having someone of Luka's MVP-caliber talents.
The Lakers are due to step up. Pelinka and the front office cannot ignore the offseason opportunity in front of them to finally set up a proper winning environment for their superstar point guard.
Vecenie mentioned it himself, Doncic is already 27 years old. There comes a little bit of wiggle room with that. The Lakers are still near the beginning of what should be the contention window with him in the mix, but that really is the point made there in itself. It should be a contention window.
Continuously kicking the can down the road will only hurt the Lakers. That is not to say they should be taking half measures that feel just barely good enough. Even so, the time to win with Luka is now. The direct competition is fierce, and they cannot just expect Doncic to level the playing field all by himself.
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