The Los Angeles Lakers have won 17 championships by fearlessly pursuing the best players that the NBA has to offer. It's a methodology that's resulted in Los Angeles acquiring some of the biggest names in Association history, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LeBron James, and Shaquille O'Neal.
The latest name to be added to that list is Luka Doncic, who carries an all-time résumé into Los Angeles despite being just 25 years of age.
Doncic is already a five-time All-NBA First Team honoree with a scoring title, a Rookie of the Year award, and five All-Star Game appearances added to his tally. He also led the Dallas Mavericks to the 2024 NBA Finals and the 2022 Western Conference Finals.
Doncic will now join a Lakers team that's already 10 games above .500 and close to avoiding the Play-In Tournament for the first time since its inception.
Assuming the Lakers maintain their excellent form and reach the playoffs, Doncic will give them a unique advantage over opponents. It's one that Los Angeles is accustomed to having, but has arguably been without for several years on end.
With Doncic as the franchise player, the Lakers can confidently say that they'll have the best player on the court in a vast majority of postseason settings.
Lakers superstar Luka Doncic has proven he can will a team to NBA Finals
Doncic has proven on multiple occasions that he alone can impact the outcome of a game, let alone a full series. No one player is going to win a 5-on-5 sport, and any narratives that suggest otherwise remove essential aspects of logical context.
Doncic, however, has the uncanny ability to take over games as both a scorer and playmaker in a way that few are equipped to match.
At 25, Doncic already has eight 40-point playoff games—tied for the 13th-most in NBA history. He also has 27 30-point games in the postseason, 16 outings with at least 10 assists, and 10 triple-doubles—the latter of which ranks sixth all time.
Beyond the numbers, Doncic can bend an opposing defense to his will and plays a fearless brand of basketball in the biggest of moments.
That uncanny ability to truly take over a game gives the Lakers an offensive talent that no team can help but extensively gameplan for. That was evident during each of Doncic's past two postseason appearances, as his individual dominance helped propel Dallas to two deep playoff runs.
That includes the 2024 Western Conference Finals, when Doncic led all players in the series in points, rebounds, assists, and steals per game to send Dallas to its first NBA Finals appearance in 13 years.
It remains unclear how Lakers head coach JJ Redick plans to design a system around Doncic, but the talent level is unavoidable. Doncic is not only one of the most productive players ever, but one of the best postseason performers of his generation.
Los Angeles now has a player to whom it can simply hand the ball and trust to bail them out if all else is failing in the playoffs.