{"id":610709,"date":"2026-02-19T01:19:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T01:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/610709\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T01:19:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T01:19:38","slug":"lakers-notes-doncic-injuries-ayton-front-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/610709\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Notes: Doncic, Injuries, Ayton, Front Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luka Doncic<\/a> believes the trade that sent him from Dallas to the Lakers last year put him in a better position to compete for championships, writes Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal<\/a> (subscription required). After making a brief appearance<\/a> in Sunday\u2019s All-Star game, Doncic conducted an interview<\/a> with Slovenia\u2019s SportKlub in which he was asked to compare the two teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the organization here is better,\u201d Doncic replied. \u201cThe Lakers are a truly legendary club, and the organization is legendary too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers have won 17 NBA titles and are regularly filled with star power, so there\u2019s plenty of history to back up Doncic\u2019s claim. The Mavericks reached the Finals with Doncic in 2024, but have gone sharply downhill since the trade and appear likely to miss the playoffs for the second straight season.<\/p>\n

Sources close to Doncic told Afseth that it\u2019s unlikely he\u2019ll ever consider returning to Dallas. Doncic and other members of his camp were unhappy with negative comments from the Mavs regarding his conditioning and other internal rationale for the trade. Afseth states that Doncic remains close to some of his former teammates and staff members, including interim co-general manager Matt Riccardi, but points out that he hasn\u2019t embraced Dallas coach Jason Kidd since being dealt.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more from Los Angeles:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy to determine if the Lakers are legitimate contenders this season, states Law Murray of The Athletic<\/a>. L.A. entered the break at 33-21 despite only having Doncic, LeBron James<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a> together for 10 games. All three of their stars have been sidelined for extended stretches, with 12 missed games for Doncic, 18 for James and 26 for Reaves. Despite being 12 games over .500, the Lakers have a negative point differential and have relied on a league-best 15-3 record in clutch games to build their winning record.
\nDeandre Ayton<\/a> was briefly detained but not arrested Tuesday at an airport in the Bahamas on suspicion of being in possession of a small amount of marijuana, according to Jasper Ward of Reuters<\/a>. \u201cThe investigators saw that the actual very small amount of marijuana wasn\u2019t in Deandre\u2019s bag, but they still went through their investigations and he was released expeditiously,\u201d said Ayton\u2019s attorney, Devard Francis, who added that the substance was actually in someone else\u2019s luggage.
\nPresident of business operations Tim Harris told staff members Monday that this is his last season with the team, per Dan Woike of The Athletic (Twitter link<\/a>). Woike notes that Harris has been with the organization for more than 35 years and describes him as the \u201cdriving force\u201d behind the Lakers\u2019 \u201cmassive\u201d local TV deal with Spectrum SportsNet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic believes the trade that sent him from Dallas to the Lakers last year put him in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3790],"tags":[1013,7,1586,3716,4034,1698,300,4044,185,251,150,4033,4043,368,15826,6,81120],"class_list":{"0":"post-610709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-deandre-ayton","11":"tag-jason-kidd","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-lakers","14":"tag-lakers","15":"tag-lalakers","16":"tag-lebron-james","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangeleslakers","21":"tag-luka-doncic","22":"tag-matt-riccardi","23":"tag-nba","24":"tag-tim-harris"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116094668863572303","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610709","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=610709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}