The Six NBA Figures Under the Most Pressure This Season

August 13, 2025 at 7:24 am

From the above article:

Luka Doncic and Rob Pelinka

The Lakers fascinate me for so many reasons. I can’t decide whether they will be this season’s most pleasant surprise or squandered opportunity, like a Ferrari locked in its own garage. Thanks to Doncic, this is a team that should have championship-or-bust expectations; short of sabotaging its future, they should do whatever it takes to contend for a title every season. Doncic has been great enough to warrant win-now urgency for years. And yet, that’s not what’s happening in Los Angeles. At least not undeniably. Instead, the Lakers have a roster full of Band-Aids.

A disgruntled, increasingly mortal LeBron James creates more questions than answers. Austin Reaves is playing for a new contract and will either be too expensive or too shaky on defense to make sense beyond this season. Marcus Smart is a 31-year-old variable whose cosmic winning plays are offset by an iffy outside shot and chronic injuries that have sapped him of the defensive edge he had in Boston.

Time will tell whether Deandre Ayton is able to establish himself as a long-term pick-and-roll partner who can anchor Los Angeles’s defense, rebound, run the floor, and sacrifice touches and shots without any complaints. Dorian Finney-Smith was lost in free agency (a misplay by Pelinka) and effectively replaced by Jake LaRavia (a fine all-around bench piece who’s yet to play a second of playoff basketball).

This brings us to Doncic. Few players are ever powerful enough to become sole possessors of their own destiny. Maybe three or four emerge in a whole generation. Doncic was one of them until Nico Harrison traded him away and then sullied his character. Doncic responded to the criticism by gracing the cover of Men’s Health magazine this summer. He shed the grief leftover from last season’s trade by assuming ownership of the situation and actively recruiting free agents (like Smart) to his new team.

It’s worth wondering how such sudden and overtly self-conscious behavior comes from someone who, since adolescence, has spent every year of his life as the most confident and preternaturally gifted basketball player his age in the entire world. Doncic’s ability to transcend all of L.A.’s issues is one question. His happiness is another.

Can he reassert himself as the soul-snatching superstar who lifted Dallas to the NBA Finals in 2024? For those who don’t remember, here were Doncic’s per-game averages that year: a league-high 33.9 points, 9.8 assists, and 9.2 rebounds. He drilled a career-best 38.2 percent of the 10.6 3-pointers he launched every night. We’re talking about someone who has the highest career usage rate (35.5 percent) in league history, a take-no-prisoners pick-and-roll maestro who’s mowed through every single defensive scheme that exists.

The pressure on Doncic is unlike what anyone else in the league is facing. Players with his potential can’t afford to spend two straight years in competitive irrelevance. The historical stakes are too high, especially now that he’s the central focus of a storied organization that’s awkwardly pivoting from one first-ballot Hall of Famer to the next. Being the face of the Lakers is different from being the face of just about any other team. It’s a type of fame that’s unachievable anywhere else. LeBron took advantage of that partnership in ways that augmented his celebrity, but the cost was an opportunity to win as many championships as he possibly could; his basketball existence was at the mercy of a front office that inevitably bungled the back nine of his career with one misstep after the next. Will Doncic, who’s yet to even win his first MVP let alone his first title, be comfortable with the same front office handling his future?

Even though he signed a two-year extension that keeps him in L.A. through 2028, it’ll be interesting to see how committed Luka is to a franchise that he did not choose on his own. To that end, Pelinka can’t take Luka for granted, especially when you look around the league and see which teams—the Rockets, Heat, Clippers, [spasming cough fit] Mavericks, etc.—are positioned to offer him a max contract two summers from now.

Maybe everything works out and Doncic is able to mask all of his team’s short-term flaws. But if not, it’ll be interesting to see how fast it takes for him to lose his patience with an organization that’s spent the last few years comfortably skating by on borrowed time.

Comments

LakerTom says

August 13, 2025 at 7:24 am

From the above article:

Luka Doncic and Rob Pelinka

The Lakers fascinate me for so many reasons. I can’t decide whether they will be this season’s most pleasant surprise or squandered opportunity, like a Ferrari locked in its own garage. Thanks to Doncic, this is a team that should have championship-or-bust expectations; short of sabotaging its future, they should do whatever it takes to contend for a title every season. Doncic has been great enough to warrant win-now urgency for years. And yet, that’s not what’s happening in Los Angeles. At least not undeniably. Instead, the Lakers have a roster full of Band-Aids.

A disgruntled, increasingly mortal LeBron James creates more questions than answers. Austin Reaves is playing for a new contract and will either be too expensive or too shaky on defense to make sense beyond this season. Marcus Smart is a 31-year-old variable whose cosmic winning plays are offset by an iffy outside shot and chronic injuries that have sapped him of the defensive edge he had in Boston.

Time will tell whether Deandre Ayton is able to establish himself as a long-term pick-and-roll partner who can anchor Los Angeles’s defense, rebound, run the floor, and sacrifice touches and shots without any complaints. Dorian Finney-Smith was lost in free agency (a misplay by Pelinka) and effectively replaced by Jake LaRavia (a fine all-around bench piece who’s yet to play a second of playoff basketball).

This brings us to Doncic. Few players are ever powerful enough to become sole possessors of their own destiny. Maybe three or four emerge in a whole generation. Doncic was one of them until Nico Harrison traded him away and then sullied his character. Doncic responded to the criticism by gracing the cover of Men’s Health magazine this summer. He shed the grief leftover from last season’s trade by assuming ownership of the situation and actively recruiting free agents (like Smart) to his new team.

It’s worth wondering how such sudden and overtly self-conscious behavior comes from someone who, since adolescence, has spent every year of his life as the most confident and preternaturally gifted basketball player his age in the entire world. Doncic’s ability to transcend all of L.A.’s issues is one question. His happiness is another.

Can he reassert himself as the soul-snatching superstar who lifted Dallas to the NBA Finals in 2024? For those who don’t remember, here were Doncic’s per-game averages that year: a league-high 33.9 points, 9.8 assists, and 9.2 rebounds. He drilled a career-best 38.2 percent of the 10.6 3-pointers he launched every night. We’re talking about someone who has the highest career usage rate (35.5 percent) in league history, a take-no-prisoners pick-and-roll maestro who’s mowed through every single defensive scheme that exists.

The pressure on Doncic is unlike what anyone else in the league is facing. Players with his potential can’t afford to spend two straight years in competitive irrelevance. The historical stakes are too high, especially now that he’s the central focus of a storied organization that’s awkwardly pivoting from one first-ballot Hall of Famer to the next. Being the face of the Lakers is different from being the face of just about any other team. It’s a type of fame that’s unachievable anywhere else. LeBron took advantage of that partnership in ways that augmented his celebrity, but the cost was an opportunity to win as many championships as he possibly could; his basketball existence was at the mercy of a front office that inevitably bungled the back nine of his career with one misstep after the next. Will Doncic, who’s yet to even win his first MVP let alone his first title, be comfortable with the same front office handling his future?

Even though he signed a two-year extension that keeps him in L.A. through 2028, it’ll be interesting to see how committed Luka is to a franchise that he did not choose on his own. To that end, Pelinka can’t take Luka for granted, especially when you look around the league and see which teams—the Rockets, Heat, Clippers, [spasming cough fit] Mavericks, etc.—are positioned to offer him a max contract two summers from now.

Maybe everything works out and Doncic is able to mask all of his team’s short-term flaws. But if not, it’ll be interesting to see how fast it takes for him to lose his patience with an organization that’s spent the last few years comfortably skating by on borrowed time.

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