Seven months have passed since the NBA blockbuster that sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, but the 26-year-old superstar admits the trade still doesn’t feel real.
“Well, first of all, it didn’t seem real. It kind of took me time to process,” Doncic told WSJ. Style. “But you know, just to move to that organization with so many trophies, one of the best organizations in the world, it was a dream come true. I think I called my father, it was still a shock, but just you know, he would say embrace the moment.”
Luka’s father, Sasa, confirmed just how motivated his son became once the move was official.
“As you can see, he’s playing fantastic. He’s hungry for success, he’s leading the team well and so far, everything is great,” Sasa said. “From the moment he arrived from L.A., he started training. When you train well, you can immediately see it in the physical appearance. Nothing has changed, he just started training even harder.”
Still, Doncic admits part of him remains tied to Dallas, the city that drafted him and built around him for six and a half seasons.
“I think it will always be strange,” Doncic said in an exclusive interview with the Washington Post. “I don’t know if someday I will have closure or not. For sure, it will always be weird.”
Doncic described the first moments after the deal went down as overwhelming.
“I didn’t know how to react, how to act, what to say,” he told WSJ. “It was a lot of shock. I felt Dallas was my home. I had many friends there. The fans always supported me. I didn’t want to upset Dallas fans. And I didn’t want to upset Laker fans.”
Now wearing purple and gold, Doncic has dropped nearly 14 kilos, dominated at EuroBasket with Slovenia, and enters his first full season in Los Angeles in the best shape of his career.
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