When the Los Angeles Lakers completed the blockbuster trade for Luka Doncic, few disputed the belief that a new franchise player had arrived. Doncic is six years younger than Anthony Davis and 15 years the junior to LeBron James, thus clearly implying that he represents the Lakers' future.
The future can arrive as soon as Saturday, Feb. 22, when Doncic has a chance to change the culture in Los Angeles in just one game.
The Lakers will travel to face a familiar foe on Saturday in what can be appropriately described as the biggest game of the season. Perhaps that sounds like an exaggeration considering Doncic is less than a month into his tenure with his new team, but history is as relevant as the future in this scenario.
On Saturday, Feb. 22, the Lakers will face the Denver Nuggets on primetime television—and Doncic will have an opportunity to prove it's a new era, indeed.
Denver and Los Angeles have less of a rivalry and more of a one-sided agreement that wins will be all but exclusively available to the former. It's a stark contrast from 2020, when the Lakers defeated the Nuggets en route to their 17th championship.
If Doncic wants to establish himself as the leader of a new era of Lakers basketball, then ending one of the most egregious stretches in franchise history would be an excellent way to do so.
Luka Doncic gets first crack at proving the Lakers can beat the Nuggets
Everything seemed to be going well for the Lakers during the first half of the Anthony Davis era. Between Dec. 3, 2019 and Dec. 16, 2022, Los Angeles went 12-6 against Denver between the regular season and the playoffs.
Since the calendar turned to 2023, however, the Nuggets have compiled an unfathomable record of 13-1 against the Lakers during regular season and postseason games.
Denver swept Los Angeles out of the 2023 Western Conference Finals and won 4-1 during the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs. It's also won five consecutive regular-season games over the purple and gold, including a 127-102 domination earlier this season.
If Doncic wants to prove that the Lakers are going to be a different team than they were during the Davis era, then defeating the Nuggets would be quite a statement.
Los Angeles has an obvious weak spot at center after the trade for Mark Williams fell through, thus suggesting it could have even more trouble defending Nikola Jokic. Doncic is a matchup nightmare in his own right, however, and has quite a support system in LeBron James and Austin Reaves.
On defense, the hope is that the Lakers' improved perimeter will make it harder to get the ball to Jokic and thus enable Doncic's offensive contributions to be magnified.
Regardless of how it happens, the bottom line is that Los Angeles needs to defeat Denver. Falling to 1-14 over the past 15 games against a team that it could end up facing in the playoffs would be an even more devastating development.
If Doncic does the unthinkable and leads the Lakers past the Nuggets on his first try, however, the entire dynamic of this faux rivalry would change overnight.