While the Luka Doncic trade to the Los Angeles Lakers came as a massive shock to the entire basketball world, it came as just a big a surprise, if not even more so, to the superstar himself.
Doncic has made no secret of the fact that he felt he would spend his entire career with the Dallas Mavericks and the idea of being traded never crossed his mind.
As such, it took some time for Luka to come to grips with the fact that he was a member of the Lakers. But the Lakers did everything in their power from day one to make the superstar guard feel at home and loved by this franchise and it has ultimately paid off.
Lakers governor Jeanie Buss has witnessed this process from the beginning and in a recent interview with Slovenian radio station radio1slo, she spoke about how sad Doncic was upon originally getting traded but has since fully embraced being a member of the Lakers family:
“It was such a surprise. Nobody knew, it was a secret, nobody knew the trade was going to happen. I knew, but he didn’t know, and so I’ve never had a player come to the Lakers and be as sad as he was. The trade was a huge surprise to him so he had to process it. But with Luka, the last time I saw Kobe Bryant alive was he brought his daughter Gianna to the Lakers game to see Luka play because Luka was Gianna’s favorite player. And so they’ve always been connected in some way. And I knew that if the opportunity to have somebody like Luka on the Lakers, that it would all work out. And so we saw in real time that Luka’s a real person and he had to process what happened. And I think now he’s embraced the Lakers and he’s all about L.A. and it’s good.”
The Lakers have always made their superstars feel special and treated them like family and Luka has been able to experience that firsthand. The support he has gotten is endless with Buss and Rob Pelinka even traveling to Poland to watch him participate in FIBA EuroBasket 2025.
It’s normal for any player in Doncic’s position to be taken aback by a trade like he experienced, with no prior knowledge at all. But the Lakers worked hard to show him that he has a home and family in Los Angeles and that’s why it was easy for him to ink that contract extension to remain here for the foreseeable future.
Luka Doncic appreciative of Jeanie Buss and Rob Pelinka traveling to support him at EuroBasket
The Lakers brass of governor Jeanie Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka traveling to Poland to show their support for Luka Doncic as he represents Slovenia at FIBA EuroBasket 2025 was a step that many franchises wouldn’t take. But Doncic was very appreciative of them traveling all that way.
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