{"id":546027,"date":"2026-01-19T04:14:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/546027\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T04:14:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:14:49","slug":"how-luka-doncic-becoming-more-vulnerable-has-paid-off-for-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/546027\/","title":{"rendered":"How Luka Doncic becoming more \u2018vulnerable has paid off for LA"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2013 As a new player coming to an established locker room, fitting in and finding a role can often be a challenge, especially when you\u2019re already used to a certain familiarity. Luka Doncic<\/a> found himself in a situation like that amid the blockbuster shakeup of being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> after six and a half seasons with the Dallas Mavericks. But after the initial shock of the trade dissipated, Lakers head coach JJ Redick<\/a> has seen a shift in Doncic as a leader<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prior to the Lakers\u2019 game against the Toronto Raptors on Sunday evening, JJ Redick spoke about how Luka Doncic opening up to the rest of the team has enabled him to grow as a leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is a comfort level that wasn\u2019t there because of everything with the trade and the emotional toll and shock of that,\u201d Redick said. \u201cHe\u2019s been more engaging, obviously he\u2019s done some great stuff off the court, like the Porsche experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Porsche experience that Redick was talking about was a team-bonding event that Doncic organized for his teammates before the season started. Each of them were able to test drive<\/a> Porsche cars on an official track, as per Brad Turner of The LA Times.<\/p>\n

It was just one of the ways in which Doncic has gone out of his way for his teammates<\/a> and allowed them to see his true self. For Redick, all of that constitutes leadership. It\u2019s not just being vocal on the court during games and practice sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stuff we coach him on, whether that\u2019s his interaction with referees, defensive engagement, all of that stuff, that\u2019s all forms of leadership. . .he\u2019s so much improved from where he was last year, and I think the guys have gotten to see his personality,\u201d Redick said. \u201cOpening up and just being yourself and being vulnerable is also a form of leadership, and he\u2019s done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as Doncic\u2019s on-court feats this season, he\u2019s made a case to mentioned in the MVP race. At the official halfway point of the season, he is leading the league in scoring at 33.6 points per game. That is the second-highest mark of his career, just short of the 33.9 he averaged his last full season in Dallas in 2023-24. He led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals that season while finishing third in the MVP voting.<\/p>\n

In addition to his scoring, he is averaging 7.7 rebounds, 8.7 assists and 1.6 steals while shooting 46.8 percent from the field, 33.4 percent from the 3-point line and 78.3 percent from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2013 As a new player coming to an established locker room, fitting in and finding a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,1661,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,368,6,2144],"class_list":{"0":"post-546027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jj-redick","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-lakers","12":"tag-lakers","13":"tag-lalakers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangeleslakers","18":"tag-luka-doncic","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-reporting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115919828263165527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}