Luka Doncic has only ever played for coaches who were former players as he enters his eighth NBA season. He began his career with the Dallas Mavericks and head coach Rick Carlisle, who was later replaced by Jason Kidd. Then, after his shocking trade to the Los Angeles Lakers in Feb. 2025, JJ Redick was added to the list.
This offseason, both Redick and Doncic — entering their second season with the Lakers — were given contract extensions. Luka’s ties him to the franchise for at least another three seasons, while Redick’s keeps him in L.A. for five.
That means that Redick and Doncic will be the Lakers’ coach-superstar tandem for the foreseeable future, and the latter is excited about that prospect.
“I think the stability is amazing,” Doncic said at Lakers Media Day. “It was great to work with JJ. Hopefully, we can work until the end of my career. I just love him as my coach. He will tell you anything. He will tell you if you did something wrong, if you did something good. Just approach to the game with him, it’s unbelievable so I’m very excited that he’s my coach.”
This is just another sign of Luka loving Los Angeles since his unexpected arrival back in February. He admitted at the time that the change would take some getting used to, but less than a year later he is extended with a coach and organization that is fully behind him.
Redick and Doncic are two remarkable offensive minds that have already shown some type of rapport together. So for them to be leading the Lakers into the next era is the kind of stability that fans have been craving for over a decade.
It should increase the excitement even more on what is an already highly-anticipated season for the purple and gold.
Luka Doncic describes Lakers training camp in three words
The Lakers kicked off training camp this week, which is the first in purple and gold for Luka Doncic after last year’s trade.
Now that he has had time to adjust to his new home, Doncic has spoken about taking on a bigger leadership role for the Lakers alongside LeBron James. Sometimes that means being vocal and sometimes that means leading by example, but whatever it is, the 26-year-old seems up to the task.
With it being his first training camp in L.A., there is an understandable adjustment period for Doncic. Things seem to be going well though as after Thursday’s practice, the superstar was asked to describe the first few days of camp using three words: Fun, excitement and hard.
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