The February trade that sent Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers was a huge shock to the system for everyone. Of course, no one was more shocked than Doncic himself, who thought he would play his entire career with the Mavericks.

During his initial weeks with the Lakers, the superstar seemed dazed as a result of the trade. But he eventually got over it, and after signing a three-year, $165 million extension in early August, it appears he will likely be a Laker for life.

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Lakers governor Jeanie Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka are in Europe right now to show their support for Doncic, who is representing his native Slovenia in EuroBasket 2025. Buss went on Slovenian radio station radio1slo and talked about the emotions Doncic went through following the trade.

“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.”

In Slovenia’s first official game of group play on Thursday, Doncic was 7-of-14 from the field and 17-of-18 from the free throw line, giving him 34 points, to go along with nine assists, four rebounds, five steals and two blocks. Unfortunately for him, Slovenia lost to Poland, 105-95.

But he has now fully committed himself to being the Lakers’ centerpiece, and he’s also fully committed to bringing at least one NBA championship to Los Angeles. Now it is just a matter of putting the right players around him and getting results.

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Jeanie Buss: Luka Doncic was ‘sad’ after he was traded to Lakers