While true, at this point it’s relegated Knecht to throw-in expiring salary.

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

4-How the West’s top 10 are built (and what changed in the offseason)

Los Angeles Lakers

Primary creators: Luka Dončić

Primary scorers: Austin Reaves

Secondary playmakers: Marcus Smart

Secondary scorers: Deandre Ayton

Low usage role players: Jake LaRavia, Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt, Jaxson Hayes

Offseason changes and 2025–26 outlook: I included both the 2024–25 Lakers playoff roster and the current 2025–26 version in this overview because the team’s offseason changes feel significant. The obvious issue last postseason was a lack of size, but an equally important—and less discussed—flaw was the lack of skill around their three main stars. Every role player who logged meaningful playoff minutes landed in the low-usage role player archetype, mostly specialists limited to catch-and-shoot or rim-rolling duties. That kind of one-dimensionality is increasingly out of step with where the league is going. Today’s contenders are leaning into a “generalist” model—role players who can check more than one of the following boxes: shoot, pass, dribble, drive, or create something off the bounce. Deandre Ayton is a much more skilled and versatile scorer than a one-dimensional lob threat like Jaxson Hayes. And Marcus Smart adds a level of toughness and secondary playmaking that Gabe Vincent and Jordan Goodwin simply couldn’t provide in the playoffs. In my player deep-dives, I described both Smart and the third offseason addition, Jake LaRavia, as connectors. And while LaRavia technically fell into the low-usage role player cluster, a closer look at some of the advanced stats from that deep-dive—and from this classification—shows he has a more diverse offensive game than players like Dorian Finney-Smith, Gabe Vincent or Rui Hachimura.

Both Ayton and Smart come with big question marks and plenty to prove next season, including how their more well-rounded offensive games will fit into a Lakers ecosystem built around three ball-dominant stars. But that challenge isn’t just on them. J.J. Redick, along with Dončić, James, and Reaves, will need to find a better balance—ideally moving toward a more egalitarian offense that doesn’t box newcomers into narrow specialist roles.

ICYMI-I did a deep dive on players archetypes on offense & team makeup for top 10 West teams+how they re-shaped in the summer🧵For Lakers the big change was adding more diverse talent around their 3 key on ball players. Ayton & Smart fill archetypes they missed in playoffs pic.twitter.com/fbwVg09xiA— Iztok Franko (@iztok_franko) July 31, 2025

We’ll see. That’s a tall order. If he can allow Luka to control the basketball, focus on the three ball and wait until the playoffs to unleash the dribble drive…maybe.

Only grading hoped for results but I’ve been a B-/B all summer on the grade.

¡¡¡LAKERS LO DARA TODO POR LUKA DONCIC!!!"Su enfoque este verano, desde perder peso hasta ganar fuerza y reclutar nuevos compañeros de equipo, muestra quién es Dončić como jugador y como pilar de los Lakers ahora tanto como cualquier foto de portada podría hacerlo.Pero las… pic.twitter.com/JIS0OolMl9— Pichu Ruas (@PichuRuas) July 29, 2025

Luka Doncic is looking to train like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan:“MJ and Kobe, you know, they really did a lot in their careers. They sacrificed a lot.” -LukaWhen a player wants to become elite they think of Mike and Kobe, then they lock in 🔒Greatness recognizes… pic.twitter.com/ItRUMPuvyQ— Jacob (@Jacobtheclipper) July 29, 2025

Predictable plot twist: Luka is in shape!@ZachLowe_NBA and @tim_cato react to Luka looking like a different person in Men’s Health. pic.twitter.com/hnrwNVL1Ed— The Ringer (@ringer) July 28, 2025

Luka Doncic at Yankee Stadium with Aaron Judge & Jazz Chisholm pic.twitter.com/bommO2J2OY— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) July 28, 2025

From the above article:

Given that the Mavericks employ several of James’ former teammates — including Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis and D’Angelo Russell — are led by coach Jason Kidd, who was on L.A.’s staff the year James led them to a championship, and has familiarity with Dallas general manager Nico Harrison, who once worked at Nike, it’s hard to ignore why there’s interest there. But beyond the professional and personal connections, from a basketball standpoint, the Mavericks do present a unique opportunity for a win-now situation that may entice James more than the slow approach the Lakers have shifted toward this summer. While Irving is expected to miss at least half of next season, and probably more, having James alongside Davis, Russell, Klay Thompson and No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg would be an intriguing lineup even in a loaded Western Conference.

Hilarious. Same response as the Denver BS lol.

From the above article:

Luka Doncic is committed to the Lakers for the long term
Doncic made some subtle recruitments and requests when he was with the Mavericks, but he never went as far as to be the outright reason someone came to Dallas. It’s clear this isn’t the case in Los Angeles after he made a full-on recruitment pitch for Smart to come to the Lakers.

While part of this is Doncic simply taking the next step in his career in terms of leveraging his power and say as a superstar player, Doncic being willing to try and get others to join him in Los Angeles shows he’s committed to winning with the Lakers and wants to be there long-term, as he’s exhibiting the same level of loyalty to the Lakers that he did with the Mavericks.

Many Mavericks fans are holding onto a string of hope Doncic could somehow find his way back to Dallas in the near future, especially since he has yet to sign a contract extension with the Lakers, but fans can’t be blindsided by the gleaming reality of this situation, as Doncic typically waited till after EuroBasket when discussing contract negotiations with the Mavericks in past years as well.

It’s almost impossible that Doncic comes back to the Mavericks in the near future, and it’s becoming overwhelmingly clear he is going to be the face of the Lakers in the immediate future and likely longer, as recruiting players to join one’s team typically doesn’t denote that the said player is wanting to leave anytime soon.

Doncic will likely sign a multi-year extension with the Lakers before the start of next season, though it won’t be nearly as much as the supermax extension he’d of been due for in Dallas, as Harrison robbed Doncic of millions by trading him away. Doncic will likely sign a shorter extension in hopes of signing a more lucrative deal once the cap spikes again in a few years, though it’s almost certain both of his next two deals will come with the Lakers unless something goes terribly wrong in LA over the next few years.

From the above article:

UKA DONčIć KNOWS that you’re thinking he looks lean as heck now. That’s because he’s thinking the exact same thing.

It’s an early morning in July in a quiet town in Croatia, and the five-time NBA All-Star is alone on a private basketball court, working out with trainer Anže Maček, midway through a 90-minute session that blends weight training, agility work, and shooting drills. This is the first of the day’s two workouts for the Los Angeles Lakers star in what may be the most pivotal season of his career, and he’s doing it fasted, just as he’s done for much of the summer. At the moment, he’s driving to the basket, a thick resistance band strapped to his waist, pulling against him during every shot.

The workout consists of a series of circuits, each set up to include an on-court challenge (like those resistance band lay-ups) and an upper-body and lower-body exercise. The facility, which is located in the town where Dončić has vacationed every summer since he was a teen, didn’t have weights until earlier this month when he had dumbbells, barbells, weight plates, and med balls trucked in. Now, Dončić can do everything from trap-bar deadlifts to landmine overhead presses—and he works through sprints and jumps on an outdoor track too.

He moves swiftly from circuit to circuit, banging out hip stretches one moment, working through renegade rows the next. It’s a session with barely any breathers, which is fine. This version of Dončić doesn’t need them. This Luka is…different.

You see it in the way his Jordan Brand jersey hangs loose, and in the new hints of definition on his arms. You see it in the complete absence of fatigue he shows when going from heavy Romanian deadlifts to dumbbell bench presses to lateral bounds—one right after the other. And you see it in the way he smiles when he admits that he’s noticed his sleek silhouette in the mirror. He subtly nods to his reshaped delts during our Zoom interview. And as he splays out his long-limbed physique on the bleachers in the gym, he seems relaxed, calmly making eye contact. His arms look longer today than usual, perhaps because he’s just so downright skinny, a fact which now (finally!) he sheepishly acknowledges. “Just visually, I would say my whole body looks better,” he says.

And yes, somehow, in the world of sports, the way you look matters—even though it shouldn’t. From Nikola Jokić to Patrick Mahomes to Shaq, decades before all of them, we’ve seen loads of evidence that athletic dominance comes in all shapes and sizes. But ask anyone to pick out an athlete in a crowd, and they’ll almost always point to the dude with LeBron-size arms and Ronaldo-level abs.

“Just VISUALLY, I would say my whole BODY looks BETTER.”
Dončić, still just 26 years old, is unquestionably a topflight athlete (more on that soon). But he’s never quite looked the Greek god part. And somehow, that shortcoming too often has undercut his five All-NBA first team nods and his 82 career triple-doubles (already seventh all-time). Last August, critics blasted him for looking “fat” and “out of shape” during a charity game. The moment the Mavs traded him to the Lakers in February, rumors leaked that Dallas didn’t want to deal with his love of beer and hookah. Even this summer, the NBA web has chattered that Dončić is on Ozempic.

What the Luka haters have never seen is this: Dončić slogging through two-a-days in Croatia while sticking to a gluten-free, low-sugar diet that includes at least 250 grams of protein and one almond milk–fueled shake a day. They never knew that Dončić had quietly constructed a fitness team several years ago to help enhance his (very dangerous) natural gifts. And they never realized how much he committed to training and diet this summer.

Here’s the thing too: Even if you thought Luka Dončić had a dadbod, he was already a top-five NBA player. And after pushing hard this offseason, he can’t help but wonder how high he’ll level up. “If I stop now,” Dončić says of his effort to rebuild his body, “it was all for nothing.”

SEVERAL WEEKS BEFORE THIS private workout in Croatia, Luka Dončić was in Madrid, standing in a lab on a force plate, a device that measures the amount of energy an athlete can drive into the ground. Typically, sports scientists use force plates to measure how quickly an athlete can jump and land. But Maček and Javier Barrio, Dončić’s physiotherapist, were watching for something else: Dončić’s balance.

It was mid-May, and Dončić was midway through a battery of tests designed to assess his current fitness level. Over the course of three days, he gave blood, urine, and stool samples, took a series of MRIs and ultrasounds, and worked through more physical tests. Those tests involved force plate work that recorded how his feet applied pressure into the ground. Very often, slow-motion cameras were recording his movement. All this data informed how he trained throughout the rest of the summer.

All Dončić wanted to do after this season ended was train, and he made that clear to his manager, Lara Beth Seager, on May 1, one day after the Lakers were ousted from the first round of the NBA playoffs. The loss was the nadir of Dončić’s worst NBA season. For all the criticism of Dončić’s body, until this past season, nobody could diss his body of work: He’d never played fewer than 60 games in a season, and just a year earlier, he’d powered the Mavs to the NBA Finals. No such luck in 2024. A calf injury knocked him out for all of January. Then Dallas sent him packing. Then came the 4-1 playoff series decimation at the hands of the Timberwolves. One day after that loss, Dončić texted Seager to start his offseason training program ASAP. “So every summer I try my best to work on different things,” he says. “Obviously, I’m very competitive. This summer was just a little bit different, you know. It kind of motivated me to be even better.”

Revenge body Luka. Just pencil-in Lakers vs Mavs on Christmas Day… pic.twitter.com/CJuzKZcoGG— Trevor Lane (@Trevor_Lane) July 28, 2025

Back in the labSource: @MensHealthMag pic.twitter.com/kmHiuOBtz2— Luka Updates (@LukaUpdates) July 28, 2025

yeah it's about to get scary pic.twitter.com/14Omt0gJ8a— Brett Usher (@UsherNBA) July 28, 2025

He’s got gluten intolerance, amazing what fasting and keto can do in a short span of time 🔥 pic.twitter.com/x8E6NmXzuC— Lars (@LakeShowLars) July 28, 2025

Luka Doncic says his vertical is HIGHER now than his 42-inch during the 2018 combine 👀 “This year, we didn’t measure the jumping yet. But I think it’s a little bit higher.”(Via @MensHealthMag) pic.twitter.com/RANeLhDOXN— Fullcourtpass (@Fullcourtpass) July 28, 2025

This can’t be the same person man lol pic.twitter.com/YlzsffTgyu— GoldenKnight (@GoldenKnightGFX) July 28, 2025

Loved this bit from Luka from the @MensHealthMag article: pic.twitter.com/d7anUKNZxu— Matthew Peralta (@_MatthewPeralta) July 28, 2025

Who’s fat now, motherfucker? pic.twitter.com/1gk8Rzh4Yn— Evan Moore- Rebel Without a Mars (@MooreHoops727) July 28, 2025

Read this during lunch. Looking good, getting excited.

lol. Sure. They’re projected cap space for next summer is over $200 mil. He ain’t playing for the vet minimum. Funny stuff.

Problem is they can’t sign anybody to the 15th spot until they make a consolidation trade. Then they will have at least 2 openings so they need to send out enough dollars to pay 2 more minimum salaries.

Then there’s the issue of Vucevic or Love as the stretch five? Whom we sign as minimum salary players to fill out the roster are still just the 14th and 15th players. It’s the player whom we trade two players for or the two players for whom we trade three players that have to include a starting small forward and backup center.

I’d be stoked if we could find a way to S&T him for Kleber but we don’t have much juice to swing those kind of deals. Takes a pick for a favor.

It’d be surprising if he didn’t.