From being the last player introduced to his cross-court pass with LeBron James, Luka Doncic looked right at home in his Los Angeles Lakers debut on Monday.
The Lakers acquired Doncic in a trade on Feb. 2 with the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for former Lakers star center Anthony Davis. It stunned sports fans all over to see a midseason trade involving two big stars—so big that James let Doncic go last for the starting lineup introduction on Monday.
Doncic, 25, has excelled as a 6-foot-7 guard in the NBA since 2018, when he played for the Mavericks after the Atlanta Hawks drafted him and traded him that year. The Slovenia native and five-time All-Star helped the Mavericks reach the NBA Finals last year, but Dallas traded him amid concerns over his diet and conditioning.
Doncic left no doubt about his fitness to play basketball right from the start on Monday when he drove the lane and found forward Jaxson Hayes for a dunk and the first basket of the game. Then Doncic buried a three-pointer for his first score in a Lakers uniform. It also didn’t hurt that Doncic had the fans behind him, he acknowledged.
“It was special the way they received me,” Doncic said. “It was amazing to see. I was a little nervous before.
“I can’t remember the last time I was nervous before the game, but once I stepped out on the court, it was fun being out there again. It felt amazing.”
Doncic shot 5–14 for 14 points, with five rebounds and four assists. His biggest highlight play came when he grabbed a defensive rebound and lobbed it cross-court to James for an easy basket in the third quarter.
Doncic, who had been a member of the Lakers for a little over a week since the trade, gave numerous shout-outs afterward for a successful transition.
“It’s a new team. New everything,” Doncic said. “But the way they helped me, teammates, Rob [Pelinka], Jeanie [Buss], it was just a lot of support for me.
“You could see when I came to the arena, I saw all the Luka jerseys. It was just a surreal feeling.”
Doncic had been accustomed to being a visitor at the Staples Center in past years. In 18 career games against the Lakers (home and away), Doncic averaged 26.2 points, 8.8 rebounds, 8.9 assists, and 1.3 steals against them.
“He came out ... and obviously the place went crazy,” Lakers guard Austin Reaves told reporters afterward. “It was awesome.”
“I thought the energy from that point forward was great,” Reaves said. “His introduction in the starting lineup was one of the loudest I’ve heard since I’ve been here.”
Doncic showed immediate chemistry with James and Reaves on the court. James finished with a team-high 24 points, seven rebounds, and eight assists. Reaves added 22 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists.
“I thought our three main guys did a nice job of playing off of each other,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick told reporters after the game.
“Sometimes you can have agendas in a game. I felt like this, for our group, was a no-agenda game beyond winning a basketball game and playing the right way,” Redick said.
Hayes smiled afterward when asked about getting to dunk off a feed from Doncic. He finished with 12 points, 3 steals, 2 assists, and 2 rebounds.
“It was extremely fun tonight,” Hayes said.
