The Lakers were 15-8 last season when Luka Dončić and LeBron James were both in the starting lineup.
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Context is king. For six consecutive offseasons, the question coming out of southern California about that market’s favorite NBA franchise was “Have the Lakers improved enough for LeBron James?”
James, after all, became the driving force behind the Lakers once he signed there as a free agent in July 2018, with an implicit expectation that he wanted to add to his personal championship rings total, as surely as the team hoped to resume hanging banners. Their first year together wasn’t nearly competitive enough — the 37-45 record was James’ worst since his rookie season, and it had been 14 years since his team failed to make the playoffs.
Each autumn thereafter, the overarching issue remained the same: had the Lakers done enough to boost their chances and James’ prospects of chasing down another title? The results were mixed: A championship in the Orlando “bubble” in 2020, a Western Conference Finals in 2023, a postseason whiff in 2022 and three first-round ousters in 2021, 2024 and last spring.
This summer, the question itself changed.
Now it’s “Have the Lakers improved enough for Luka Dončić?”
And the early answer appears to be yes.
Are the Lakers still in position to contend in the West? NBA TV's experts share their thoughts.
No one is pushing James out the door. Even as he nears age 41, the four-time champion and four-time Kia MVP is one of the league’s most productive players. He averaged 24.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game last season, earned his 21st All-Star selection, finished sixth in MVP balloting for helping L.A. reach 50 victories and landed on the All-NBA Second Team.
Father Time hasn’t whupped him yet, but the old guy is relentless, and what we’re seeing now is how he’s shaping the James/Lakers narratives. LeBron is an essential member of Lakers lore, an imported legend on one side of the franchise ledger with Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal to complement homegrown heroes such as Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Kobe Bryant.
Still, the tale of the Lakers’ present and future will be told through Dončić. Even more so, it seems, based on the clamor caused over the past week or so by the Slovenian star’s physical transformation. This latest version of Dončić — as reported in the cover story of Men’s Health magazine and witnessed in his Nike promotional stops in New York, Chicago and L.A. — looks stronger, healthier, obviously leaner and presumably meaner heading toward a 2025-26 season in which he may make the Dallas Mavericks and a wide swath of doubters pay.
Our digital cover star, Luka Doncic, ready to take his game (and the Lakers) to new levels of dominance. And this summer shred has been years in the making.https://t.co/aB19DY7rrL pic.twitter.com/bjVsf1ampI
— Men's Health Mag (@MensHealthMag) July 28, 2025
Locked in – Luka has been putting in the work all offseason 💪
Read more ➡️ https://t.co/2ll8JmRmND
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) July 28, 2025
The Mavericks were the ones who shocked the basketball world in February, trading Dončić from the only NBA team he’d known under cover of darkness in his early prime, four weeks shy of his 26th birthday. The doubters were the ones inside and outside that organization who leaked and joked about the alleged reasons for it — that Dončić’s failure to get into top-notch shape made him prone to injuries and limited his potential, possibly his longevity too as a dominant superstar.
Whether Dončić naturally would have begun to take better care of himself as he headed toward middle career or whether the trade and noise triggered him to do so, the stage appears set: the five-time All-NBA selection, the 2023-24 scoring leader and maestro of 89 career triple-doubles looks poised to have his biggest season yet.
More strength and better conditioning have led to breakthrough seasons for many of the game’s brightest stars and, in fact, athletes across all sports. But in Dončić’s case, it’s the commitment and some assumed desire for retribution underlying the transformation that has the league abuzz.
So even if James has not receded as the so-called face of the Lakers, Dončić appears to be their newly pumped biceps, better-defined jawline and leaner torso.
Lakers GM Rob Pelinka found some upgrades for the roster. DeAndre Ayton, No. 1 pick and Dončić’s pal from the 2018 Draft, was signed after his buyout in Portland. For all his flaws — from shooting limitations to dubious energy — Ayton is an improvement over last spring’s Jaxson Hayes-or-bust scenario that had coach JJ Redick going centerless in his team’s most important minutes.
Forward Jake LaRavia isn’t a match defensively for Dorian Finney-Smith, the most regrettable departure from last season’s squad, but he is younger and a 42% shooter from the arc to benefit from both Dončić and James in the paint. Then there is Marcus Smart, the veteran pepper pot and 2021-22 Kia Defensive Player of the Year who was waylaid by injuries the past two seasons, appearing in only 54 games for Memphis and Washington.
Smart pulled back the curtain on the Lakers’ shift in agenda at his introductory news conference in El Segundo, sharing that it was Dončić who took an active role in recruiting the 11-year veteran.
Adding Deandre Ayton to the frontcourt fills a big need for the Lakers in 2025-26.
“When you get a guy like Luka calling, referencing, checking on you, trying to see where you at … to see if you want to come and join something special that he’s trying to cook up over here,” Smart said. “And for him to say that he can really use my help, that meant a lot.”
The news conference was done and over by the time Smart said he was sure he’d talk with James soon. That alone seemed like a baton being passed, a re-ordering of the organization’s priorities.
So have the Lakers done enough this offseason? Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and Gabe Vincent are holdovers. Jarred Vanderbilt and Maxi Kleber should be healthier and more available. Dalton Knecht has the potential to plumb (or not). Ayton and Smart are pieces new to the mix and depth.
Meanwhile, Dončić likely will be better. And the biggest thing for him and James is that both will have the other from training camp on. The West looks wicked, but with their two All-NBA game-changers, the Lakers can be nasty.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
