On Aug. 2, Luka Doncic will be eligible to sign a long-term contract extension with the Los Angeles Lakers. It may take him some time to actually sign one, as he is spending much of the summer representing his native Slovenia in the upcoming FIBA Eurobasket competition.
There has been a bit of anxiety regarding whether Doncic will actually stay with the Lakers. He can opt out of his current contract next summer, and while they have a very good roster, they don’t have a championship-caliber one and are coming off a five-game loss in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
There have been reports that L.A. will be in a holding pattern for a year or two until it can go after Giannis Antetokounmpo or Nikola Jokić as soon as next summer. One NBA executive said that such a plan could very well drive Doncic to join Jokic’s Denver Nuggets.
Via ClutchPoints:
“The Lakers have to be careful,” a West executive told ClutchPoints. “Luka just got his butt kicked by a team he handled easily last year, and now they’re telling him to wait another year before he can really compete.
“If Denver wins it all or comes close while Rob [Pelinka] makes it clear he doesn’t believe in Luka and LeBron as a combo, they could be a real threat for him this next season or two.”
The Nuggets won the NBA championship just two calendar years ago, and although they have lost in the second round of the playoffs during the last two seasons, they still have a very strong roster.
They’re considered one of the big winners of this offseason after trading forward Michael Porter Jr. for forward Cam Johnson and adding guards Bruce Brown Jr. and Tim Hardaway Jr., as well as center Jonas Valanciunas, in free agency. Of course, Jokic remains, in the minds of most, the best basketball player on the planet, and he just became the third player in NBA history to average a triple-double this past season.
Los Angeles hasn’t improved as much as Denver has, but it did address its big hole at the center position by snagging center Deandre Ayton, who could thrive next to Doncic since he’s a big-time lob threat. There is always the chance that it makes another move this summer, especially given the fact that it reportedly wants to improve its point-of-attack defense.