Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) acknowledges the fans that were chanting his first name in the closing minutes of their win over the Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, April 9, 2025.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
The elegies for LeBron James’ reign were still piling up around the City of Angels when Rob Pelinka, Nico Harrison’s former co-conspirator, put his stuff out on the street.
The King is dead, at least to the Lakers.
Long live the new king.
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The Lakers are officially Luka Doncic’s team, which, even after all these months, is hard to type. Pelinka didn’t even wait 24 hours to make the Lakers’ over into Luka’s image. Maybe not so coincidentally, it looks a lot like the one the Mavs had before Nico wiped it off the NBA map.
Pelinka, who got a franchise cornerstone on the cheap from the Mavs, paid nearly twice as much Wednesday for a center who’s started 125 games in four seasons. Even so, Walker Kessler should give Luka the lob threat and defense that Daniel Gafford/Dereck Lively II provided him here. Three free agent signings — highlighted by Quentin Grimes, another Nico blunder — plus the addition of Kessler, give the Lakers a leg up on the two-way players necessary to augment the playmaking of Luka and Austin Reaves.
By the way: When a Lakers fan ripped Pelinka on X for waiting until now to acquire the kind of center Anthony Davis always wanted to play next to, the latter responded with a string of laughing emojis.
We’re not laughing here, AD.
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Now, the 7-2 Kessler notwithstanding, I’m not saying Pelinka is on to something big. His reputation as a bungler persists despite the Luka heist. He’s also painted himself into a corner with the new owner, Mark Walter. He has to win now, because he doesn’t have much flexibility going forward. Just as Nico did in Dallas, Pelinka has exhausted the Lakers’ cache of first-round picks in an attempt to build a contender around Luka. From here on out, it’s pretty much Finals or bust.
Meanwhile, despite what Masai Ujiri and Dusty May said at the latter’s introductory presser the other day, the Mavs appear to be playing the long game. As May put it, they want to win “sooner than later,” even if that’s not what their actions say.
The big news this week is whether LeBron will join the Greek Freak in Miami or Steph Curry at Golden State while lesser stars crisscross the horizon like a midsummer meteor shower.
Santi Aldama, I suppose.
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Look, he’s 7-foot, which would be nice in the face of Victor Wembanyama, and he shoots an occasional 3, which neither Gafford nor Lively do. Also makes you think Gafford could be the next to go. The Mavs also appear to be getting Marcus Sasser, a Red Oak kid whose uncles, Jeryl and Jason, starred at SMU and Texas Tech, respectively. Great bloodlines. Marcus can also shoot, and the Mavs need shooters around Cooper Flagg.
The question is, what’s next?
And will this be a quick rebuild or a long, painful one?
I’m not eager to put a clock on Ujiri to show his hand. The last time I did so — writing they should hire a head coach before the draft so he’d have some say in the pick — they hired the new guy 24 hours before they went on the clock, then took one of his own players.
A couple of team officials were still laughing about it when I saw them at May’s presser.
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Like I told the boss, at least they’re reading.
Anyway, the point of this column in case you were wondering is we’re 17 months out from one of the most mind-boggling trades in NBA history, one that both sides figured would better their futures, and one has already abandoned all hope. And rightfully so. Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi didn’t last long as co-GMs, but they did the franchise a solid by trading AD to the Wizards. Even if it didn’t bring much in the way of a player or prospect return, it rid them of Davis’ cap-strapping contract, not to mention the constant reminder of the worst trade in Dallas sports history.
The Lakers still have hope because of Luka, who, alongside Kyrie Irving, led a flawed Mavs team to the Finals. Once again, they lost to the Celtics not because they couldn’t guard them, but because they couldn’t keep up with them. We’ll soon see if Pelinka can do a better job building around Luka than Nico did.
No matter what happens with the Lakers, though, at least we’ve got a pretty good idea of who they are and where they’re headed.
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Ujiri says all their decisions will be centered around Flagg, which is as it should be. He’s the consolation prize of all the Mavs’ recent misery, and a spectacular one, at that. For starters, he checked one of May’s boxes for leaving Michigan in the first place. The other reasons? D-FW Airport, a hub that will allow his wife, Anna, to visit their three sons, and the fact that Texas has no state income tax.
Good to know the new guy’s practical. My guess is he’ll need to keep it that way as he embarks on a new career in Dallas. Could be a while before anyone much notices, whereas the story of the Lakers in the post-LeBron era will occupy headlines for years. Can Luka measure up to such a luminous legacy? Hard to say. But I like his chances at least as much as Flagg’s odds in Luka’s wake.
Twitter/X: @KSherringtonDMN