‘Imagine how I felt’: Luka Doncic surprised he was traded to Lakers
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Luka Doncic sat and mostly stared flatly, the room undoubtedly spinning as he spoke for the first time officially as a Laker.
Luka Doncic. In the building. As a Laker.
Crazy.
“Everybody was surprised,” he said with a pause, “so you can imagine how I felt.”
His introductory news conference wasn’t so much one of celebration as it was one of processing, the 25-year-old megastar inside a new building after he shockingly was traded from the only franchise he’d known in the NBA to the Lakers and Los Angeles, a place where Kobe Bryant once trash-talked him in Slovenian as a spectator in 2019.
“I remember that exact moment that happened,” Doncic said Tuesday morning. “It always stayed in my mind. It was an amazing moment, just for Kobe to know my name was amazing for me.”
LeBron James may no longer be the No. 1 priority for the Lakers, but that doesn’t mean he’ll ask to be traded in the wake of the Luka Doncic trade.
Doncic now will have his place at the foreground of the franchise, just like Bryant, Magic Johnson and LeBron James did before. The way the Lakers attained him — sprung upon the world on a Saturday night after a nearly monthlong negotiation between general managers Rob Pelinka and Nico Harrison that began inside a Dallas coffee shop — stunned the NBA.
And players and executives around the league weren’t stunned the Lakers snagged another star because they didn’t send the Mavericks meaningful players — they traded Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick. Mostly it was disbelief that Doncic, a five-time first-team All-NBA player, was even available at all, when he never asked to be dealt.
On Tuesday, Doncic gave a Dallas reporter a wry smile when asked if he had given the Mavericks reason to believe he wouldn’t have signed the supermax extension he’d earned with the team.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
The disbelief he was in Los Angeles cut both ways, excitement for the new opportunity and shock that a trade could even happen.
“Honestly, it was hard at first. That first day was really hard. I felt like this last 48 hours was one month, like two days ago was one month ago,” Doncic said. “So emotionally, it was really hard. But every day there [after] like today was much better. I’m just very happy to be here for this opportunity. This is the Lakers. It’s one of the best clubs in history. So I’m excited to be here.”
Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ general manager and vice president of basketball operations, says he’ll continue to build a roster around Luka Doncic.
Pelinka’s enthusiasm was a little easier to read. The Lakers GM wore a brown leather jacket and waxed about the global impact this “seismic” event would produce, the Lakers teaming up with Doncic.
“The reason I say that is because we have a 25-year-old global superstar that’s going to get on the stage with the most popular and influential basketball brand on the globe,” Pelinka said. “I think when those two powerful forces come together, it brings basketball joy to the world, because that’s how Luka plays. He plays with joy.
“If you think about kids in Barcelona, or kids in Buenos Aires, or children in Shanghai or Sydney, they’re going to be wearing a No. 77 Luka Doncic Lakers jersey and bringing joy to basketball, just like he does. And that’s why it’s powerful.”
Pelinka said he began processing ways to make the trade as soon as he heard Doncic was available.
“I don’t think of it in terms of shock, surprise. I think of it as, ‘OK, this is coming at me, it’s like a game.’ Maybe a blitz is coming at Luka. He’s not going to be shocked, he’s going to stay in the moment, figure out the read and make the play. And so when the opportunity came to me, that was my mindset … ‘OK, this is coming. This is a concept that came to me. Now, how do I process this mentally to get the deal completed?’
“And right away when it was brought up at the coffee, my mind started churning. There were so many complicated things.”
Pelinka said he understands the Lakers’ need for a center after dealing Davis but vowed the team will not be reactionary at the trade deadline, calling the market for big men “dry.” He said a bigger move for a center best suited for Doncic could happen as soon as this offseason.
Doncic, sidelined since Christmas because of a calf injury, could make his Lakers debut shortly, Pelinka said. He’s scheduled for a five-on-five practice Wednesday.
“For the first time, I took my time to get it to heal 100%,” Doncic said. “Other times I think I just wanted to go back on the court playing basketball and not really be healthy 100%. So this time, I just took my time, which was a normal amount of time to get back to 100%.”
Dallas pointed to fears about Doncic’s health and conditioning as the main reason for trading him to the Lakers along with forwards Markieff Morris and Maxi Kleber.
“I hear stuff about him not being in shape, but if you can go in a NBA game and get 30, 15, and 10 like it’s nothing, then I don’t really know what shape is,” Morris said. “I’m confused at that part.”
Doncic said he expected stories like that after the trade and that he wanted to take the high road, instead choosing to focus on things like being near the ocean and getting to play with LeBron James.
“It’s just like a dream come true,” Doncic said. “I always look up to him. There’s so many things I could learn from him. And I’m just excited, just to learn everything and now I get to play with him. So it’s an amazing feeling.”
In addition to arriving with Morris, Kleber and members of his medical team, Doncic was teammates with Lakers coach JJ Redick and Dorian Finney-Smith and worked with Lakers assistant Greg St. Jean in Dallas.
“To come to a new place but still know some people. And I think that’s, mentally, I think that’s a really good thing,” Doncic said. “And they’re gonna just help me, you know? The guys that are here, they’ll help me, like, learn new stuff about L.A., about the team. And it’s just helpful to see friendly faces.”
Morris, a member of the Lakers’ 2020 championship team, will be a valuable veteran voice. And Kleber, who is set to be re-evaluated in eight weeks following a foot surgery, can be a versatile veteran on both ends of the court. They will help a team.
But Doncic will be a foundation for an organization.
“We have one of the game’s biggest superstars, an international player coming to join the Los Angeles Lakers,” Pelinka said. “It’s a convergence of all those forces, and I think it’s going to be something incredibly special that the NBA and basketball has never seen before.”
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