Can Luka Dončić Take The Lakers To The Mountaintop?

Welcome to our annual Lakers season in review series, where we’ll look back at each player on the team’s roster this season and evaluate if they should be part of the future of the franchise. Today, we continue our series with a look at Luka Dončić.

After getting a half-season look at a shell-shocked version of him, Lakers fans got the full Luka Dončić experience this season.

An offseason where Luka rededicated himself physically laid the foundation for him to return to his finest form. He won the scoring title, finished fourth in MVP voting and returned to the All-NBA First Team.

And yet, the season ending with him on the sideline will be one of the lasting visuals as the team heads into the offseason. Injuries, which have certainly played a role in Luka’s career, robbed him and the Lakers of any real chance of competing in the postseason.

Luka is unquestionably one of the league’s elites. The Lakers are heading into an offseason focused on maximizing the roster for him. Can he take them to the promised land?

How did he play?

The Lakers have seen a who’s who come through The Forum and Staples Center across decades. To do things no one has ever done means something more in Los Angeles.

That’s the type of season Luka had. The highlight of an incredible campaign was his March performance in which he became just the 10th player in league history to score at least 600 points.

If there were any lingering reservations about what he could do after an underwhelming 2024-25 season — at least by his standards — Luka aggressively swatted those away. He still is, without question, one of the game’s top offensive forces.

On top of leading the league in usage rate, Luka also finished with the second-best true shooting percentage of his career at 61.6%. He was fifth in the league in assist percentage and fourth in box plus/minus, finishing behind just the three MVP finalists.

In short, the Lakers put a lot on his plate and he did what alphas in the NBA do and carried them to another 50-win season. There is no doubt that, when healthy, he is one of the greatest players in the world.

It’s that caveat, though, that is left hanging over the season. Through the first 77 games of the season, Luka was mostly healthy. But a hamstring strain, an injury that has popped up at times in Luka’s career, cost him the end of the regular season and the entire playoffs.

While all the questions about production were wiped away, questions about withstanding the rigors of the season remain. Luka has once played fewer than 61 games in a season, that coming last year due to a calf strain. At the same time, he’s only once played more than 70 games and that was in his rookie season.

Perhaps another offseason of further working on his body will help him be able to handle the rigors of the NBA. Perhaps the Lakers make life a bit easier by surrounding him with players that maximize him, like athletic wings and lob-catching centers.

But no matter what, he has to be on the floor when it matters. Otherwise, an incredible season, like the one he had, still ends with a bitter taste in the mouth.

What is his contract situation moving forward?

In August, Luka signed a 3-year, $165 million extension, which officially kicks in this season. He will make roughly $49.5 million this year.

Should he be back?

This is the simplest, quickest and most authoritative “yes” response on the roster to this question. As President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka noted in his exit interview, the hardest part of building a title contender is getting the superstar everything orbits around.

The Lakers have that in Luka. The question this summer, then, is whether the front office can build the right roster around him. At any available opportunity, Luka will speak of his love of playing in Los Angeles and being a Laker. An offseason in which the team can surround him with talent to further maximize him, and them, could lead to LA returning to the title-contention conversation.

From there, it’ll be Luka’s job to carry them to the mountaintop.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.