The Los Angeles Lakers offseason — in recent weeks — hasn’t been filled with many feel-good stories, as ownership transfers and sibling rivalries take center stage. However, Luka Doncic organizing a multi-day minicamp in his hometown of Ljubljana, Slovenia for the entire Lakers roster has been a fun storyline to follow.
Doncic is fully assuming his role as the leader of the franchise, and inviting the entire team to his home with all accommodations paid for is a wonderful gesture and a way to get real team-building in before training camp even starts. And now, some details have been reported on what the next few days might look like, with minicamp beginning on Thursday and going through the weekend.
“It starts off with Luka (Doncic) chartering a plane for 14 people,” Ramona Shelburne said on ESPN L.A. 710 AM. “I think (Sandro) Mamukelashvili is meeting them, he’s over in Georgia right now. The country, not the state (laughs). He’s chartering a plane, and on the plane there are, like, gift bags. And I think when they get to the hotel, there are going to be more gift bags. And there are all sorts of cool Slovenian things. It’s like a bachelorette trip. It really is. And then they’re going to go to Luka’s favorite restaurant, and they’re going to go fishing on Lake Bled which is this really fancy lake there. I guarantee there’s some golf involved at some point, there’s going to be some golf. There’s going to be bonding, it’s like five days. It’s a long trip to go on with your team.”
Shelburne’s comparison of this trip to a bachelorette party sounds both accurate and like an incredible experience for the entire Lakers team. It’s likely that a majority of the roster has never been to Slovenia, making this a once-in-a-lifetime type moment for a group of people that has the fortune of traveling around the country and world relatively regularly.
It’s also a very personal thing for Doncic to do, inviting his entire team to his hometown to show where he grew up, where he likes to eat and where he goes for fun. It’s something that will assuredly help with chemistry as the Lakers look to build a brand new roster, effectively from scratch, around Doncic and Austin Reaves.
Hopefully, fans get details of this trip as the week wears on, as it would be a fun way to connect with the team before seeing them in game action.
Luka Doncic getting to know new Lakers owners
Doncic has reportedly already opened a line of communication between himself and new Lakers owners, Bob Iger and Josh Kushner. This report came less than one week after it was announced that Mark Walter was flipping the Lakers less than one year after acquiring them.
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