There’s a good saying that goes a little like this: Not everything that glitters is gold. But a golden standard has been set for generations by a specific team in a glamorous area of the world that has never failed to deliver on its promise to their fans and ardent supporters. That team is one that I have been honored to be a fan of and a proud supporter throughout the years of sports fandom that I have enjoyed. This team is by far the most successful one that I have had the pleasure of viewing and acknowledging the long history of championships and titles they achieved before I was born, shortly after I was born and further into my lifetime.

Of course I’m talking about the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA franchise with the iconic purple and gold trim and with 17 NBA titles to their name. None of that success would be possible without the players that have spent significant parts or the majority of their careers playing for the most beloved franchise in all of Southern California. Stars like Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, the late-great Kobe Bryant and more-recently LeBron James have graced the playing courts at arenas in the greater Los Angeles area for the better part of 65 years. But the Lakers just made a move a couple months ago that might change the layout of their franchise for the next decade plus in an era where star players keep popping up like weeds throughout the NBA. They acquired potentially the biggest player not-drafted by them since Kobe(via trade), Shaq(another trade acquisition) and maybe even Kareem(a famous trade acquisition 50 years ago).

On the night of Feb. 1, 2025, the Lakers acquired a young man by the name of Luka Dončić from the Dallas Mavericks for a ransom of two rotation players who were very efficient in the regular season rotation up to that point. Those two players were Anthony Davis and Max Christie, who were very good in producing in offensive and defensive statistics for the Lakers in the 2024-25 season. But getting Luka was an offer the Lakers simply couldn’t refuse because he is simply a once-in-a-generation superstar with a unique skill set of scoring, assisting and rebounding along with playing above-substandard defense. That’s something easier to find than ever before, but Dončić has something very unique about him. It’s the flare that he brings, the way he dribbles the ball, the style in which he shoots, the sizzle with his passes. Luka is simply that special and loved by all who see him play either on a TV or in-person at a basketball game in a big city near them.

How Dončić became a Laker is a much more intriguing tale than other previous stars who have played for the team who originated in Detroit, started playing as a flagship franchise in Minneapolis and made its way to L.A in 1960. He was supposed to be the star franchise player for a team less successful than the Lakers in the Dallas Mavericks, who have only won one title in their franchise history with their previous big star, the German high-step shooter Dirk Nowitzki. Along with other modest stars like Jason Kidd(their current head coach), Vince Carter and Steve Nash, the Mavs have always fluctuated between being contenders and being in rebuild mode. But they ended up getting a guy that could help put them in the top crop of NBA teams, somewhere that they’ve never spent a sustainable amount of time. That guy was Luka Doncic(not writing his name with his European syllables over the cs for the rest of this post), who was actually drafted by the Atlanta Hawks and swapped with Trae Young(drafted by Dallas) in 2018. The NBA’s equivalent of the Phillip Rivers-Eli Manning draft trade in 2004 resulted in two lowly franchises getting their star players for the future and Doncic was worth the pick swap for the Mavericks.

The first few years of Doncic’s career were filled with great individual success that endeared him to Mavericks fans, whose team struggled for the better part of his first three seasons. Doncic averaged over 25 points per game in his second, third and fourth seasons in the league along with having pretty high numbers for rebounds, assists and steals. Doncic was putting up triple-doubles on teams where he was the star player and role players surrounded him such as Dorian Finney-Smith, Seth Curry, Tim Hardaway Jr, and others. Luka had the chance to play with star players such as Kristaps Porzingis, Jalen Brunson, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson in Dallas, but those teams were simply not good enough to win a title. The 2022 and 2024 playoff runs for the Mavs were promising, but they fell to the teams who eventually won the NBA Finals each of those years. Losing to an aged-out Golden State Warriors dynasty in the Western Conference finals in 2022 and the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals last season, the Mavericks were defeated but in no way were they not championship contenders. As long as they had number 77, they would be a hard team to beat. However, their front office and new ownership had some reservations and doubts about the Slovenian superstar’s ability to sustain his greatness for the future.

When Patrick Dumont bought the majority ownership stake of the Mavericks organization from billionaire investor Mark Cuban in 2023, people who follow and watch the NBA had no idea at the time the massive consequences that would come with it. Cuban is still a minority owner of the Mavs and he had expressed great faith and respect for Doncic. However, when Luka signed a super max contract for $207 million in 2022, Cuban did not have general manager Nico Harrison put a no-trade clause in that contract. Doncic was signed through the 2026-27 season and by the time his contract would conclude, he would be 28 years old. That lack of a no-trade clause would come back to haunt the Mavericks organization dearly. Crazy trades have happened before in the NBA and the Lakers have been the beneficiaries of plenty of those high-stakes trades for many of those players.

When Luka started to prepare for this current season, the Mavericks wanted him to get into “proper basketball shape”, whatever that may be. Clearly, Doncic’s body is not typical of other NBA players’ bodies given his European heritage. But he has shown time and again that no matter how much he weighs, he can perform at a top level as long as he is healthy. But when Luka got injured with a calf strain on a Christmas Day game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at American Airlines Center, a door was opened and conversations would begin in secret between two men who know each other well and are friends in the professional atmosphere of basketball operations. Nico Harrison is one of those men and the other one is none other than Rob Pelinka, the vice president of basketball operations and general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers for the past several seasons.

Pelinka and Harrison knew each other from their days working together as agents for top-tier hoopers in the league. Pelinka was an agent for the late-great Kobe Bryant and Harrison was an executive at Nike for plenty of years. The two men started discussing in earnest when the new year began the possibility of a trade between star players on their teams’ respective rosters. These discussions began when the Lakers were in Dallas to play the Mavericks on Tues, Jan. 7, a game which Luka Doncic did not play in due to his calf injury. The weeks that followed would set the stage for one of the biggest trades in American sports history. The Lakers were trying to stay above 7th place in the Western conference standings, while the Mavs lagged behind in those play-in tournament standings with Luka still out. The Lakers would play in the wake of devastating wildfires in the L.A area that caused two of their home games to be postponed for an abundance of caution and safety. Through it all, they remained tough and under the leadership of LeBron James regrouped and started winning games that propelled them up into the standings. After a feel-good road trip that concluded with a victory over the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, the Lakers were on the rise. But right after the game on Sat, Feb. 1 concluded, a tweet from ESPN NBA Insider Shams Charania changed everything.

According to Charania, the Lakers and Mavericks had engaged in a blockbuster trade right before the NBA trade deadline on Thurs, Feb. 6 that would send Luka Doncic, Markieff Morris and Maxi Kleber to the purple and gold while the Mavs received Anthony Davis, shooting guard Max Christie and the Lakers’ 2029 NBA draft first-round pick. It was safe to say that heads were rolling after this trade. Players across the league playing in arenas where games had yet to conclude that night got word of the trade along with the fans in those arenas on their smartphones. Kevin Durant jokingly asked if the Lakers had received Timberwolves forward Luka Garza, but obviously he knew that they received the more famous and well-known Luka. People thought that Charania’s phone had been hacked, but Charania himself said that it wasn’t. The most unbelievable trade ever occurred and Luka Doncic had become a Los Angeles Laker at the halfway mark of the 2024-25 NBA season.

Now this is something that Luka did not ask for. This was something planned out by Nico Harrison and the Mavericks’ front office because they believed acquiring Anthony Davis would help their defensive efficiency ratings significantly as Davis had aided the Lakers in that category for years. But the one thing that they clearly looked past was Davis’ injury history wearing a Lakers jersey. Many different injuries regarding his lower extremities plagued his time playing in Tinseltown. Davis’ lack of availability held the Lakers back, and the fact that the one title that they had won during Davis’(and LeBron James’) tenure- occurred during an extensive bubble period that was proceeded by a four-month waiting period due to the COVID-19 pandemic- was a blessing in disguise for the Lakers. Davis was hurt way too often and he was only getting older. Even though he had improved during the past couple seasons and became seemingly more durable, Anthony Davis was still prone to injuries and every time Lakers fans saw him fall on the floor, they feared the worst for his health and availability throughout an 82-game regular season and the playoffs. Under a new coaching staff this season, Davis was putting up big numbers in points, rebounds and blocks. Almost playing at an MVP level, A.D(as he has been known as along with his other nickname in The Brow) was helping lift a Lakers team with a 40-year old LeBron James and some good young players such as Austin Reaves, Max Christie(who would be traded with Davis to Dallas), Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent and Jaxson Hayes.

This season for the Lakers has been dominated also by the narrative of LeBron’s oldest son in Bronny James Jr being a rookie in the organization and the amount of appearances he would make on the main team in games that were “in the refrigerator”, for better or worse. The media was fixated on this and the pressure for Bronny to play was only shown by the fans at Crypto.com Arena and arenas throughout the association where the Lakers have played this season with chants of “We Want Bronny!” ringing out when their team or the Lakers were ahead by a lot of points in the late stages of a game. The acquisition of Luka Doncic has taken the spotlight off Bronny to some degree thankfully.

Ever since trading for Doncic, the media has been focused on the implications of this trade on both sides. For the Lakers, they acquired a star player that can take on the mantle of being the face of the franchise in the present moment and whenever LeBron James decides to hang up his sneakers and retire from playing professionally. For the Mavericks, hell has come in the form of angry fans protesting the move and holding signage critical of the organization, specifically Nico Harrison, who has unfortunately been on the wrong end of some boos, chants and threats towards him by ordinary people who simply feel backstabbed for losing arguably their biggest star player in their team’s history.

Things have only worsened for Dallas ever since trading away Luka Doncic. Anthony Davis suffered another lower-extremity injury to his adductor in his debut game as a Maverick and missed a month and a half of playing time since that game on Sat, Feb. 8(he returned to action on Mar. 24). Kyrie Irving tried to take on the mantle of carrying the team, but he suffered a torn Achilles tendon on Mon. March 3 that ended his season. Other injuries have abounded for the Mavs, specifically in their frontcourt with big men being hobbled left and right. As for the standings outlook, the Mavericks have done poorly as the defending champions of the Western Conference, falling to being nearly out of contention for the playoffs and sitting on the edge of being out of the play-in tournament. Battling with the Phoenix Suns for the final spot in the play-in tournament, the Mavs have fallen mightily from where they were just one year ago. That is what happens when you have your doubts about a star player and trading him results in nothing but bad luck and a downward trajectory for your franchise. What happens next for them is unknown, but this is something Luka didn’t ask for.

Previous Lakers stars acquired via trade either wanted to come to L.A or wanted to be on a better team than where they were. Kareem Abdul-Jabaar had a good pairing with Oscar Robertson in Milwaukee, but after winning one title with the Bucks, he felt that he needed to extend his career success that began at UCLA. Kareem returned to Los Angeles to play for the Lakers and the Showtime dynasty eventually blossomed with him as a cornerstone piece of the dynasty. The main catalyst of that run of success for the Lakers was Earvin “Magic” Johnson, whom they were able to draft after acquiring the number one pick in the NBA draft in 1979. The first season in Magic’s career resulted in a championship and there would be four more to come for him and Kareem. Jerry West engineered two amazing trades in the same month of June 1996 in acquiring Shaquille O’Neal from the Orlando Magic and trading for Kobe Bryant, who had been drafted by the Charlotte Hornets but he desired to be a Laker legend. The Black Mamba and the Big Diesel ended up winning a three-peat of titles and Kobe won two consecutive titles without Shaq in 2009 and 2010.

But Luka Doncic didn’t ask to be traded away from Dallas. He was the main man in the heart of Texas, having gained an aura of love from Mavericks fans and casual NBA fans for leading a mostly mediocre franchise to greater heights and hopes for the future. He didn’t ask to be traded to the Lakers, but he always respected the franchise even when he was a young teenage hooper for Real Madrid’s basketball club. Luka mourned the loss of Kobe and Gianna Bryant when they passed away in a tragic helicopter crash in Jan. 2020 and he wishes that they were still here on Earth to bear witness to his glorious arrival in L.A as a Laker. Luka Doncic might someday, should he build a legacy worth remembering, have a statue outside the arena on Star Plaza alongside the statues of Lakers greats, including Kobe Bryant’s soon to be three statues. But all of that is to be decided in the years to come when number 77 is the sole star player for the Lakers. A deal will have to be made to extend Doncic’s contract and ensure that he plays for no other team other than the purple and gold for the rest of his amazing professional basketball career.

The Lakers now have a chance to do something that they’ve done many times with star players that they acquired via trade and free agency, which is win not just one title but a plethora of them. A new dynasty can begin very soon, but it will not be without its challenges. How much longer LeBron plays will be up to him and how many more seasons he can endure playing in the grind of the NBA regular season along with the playoffs. Luka will obviously need a good supporting cast to give him a chance to thrive. He has that right now with the players noted above along with other players such as sharp-shooter Dalton Knecht(one of the best rookies in Lakers history), Dorian Finney-Smith(acquired via trade earlier in the season), Jarred Vanderbilt and others. Luka Magic has shown itself to be very good so far for the Lakers, as his debut against the Utah Jazz on Mon. Feb 10 energized the arena that Kobe Bryant built to new heights. With his ability to make long three-point shots and make players defending him look befuddled, Doncic has been nothing short of an entertaining product in a city filled with stars and entertainment. Luka has obviously taken his show on the road as well, with big performances against good teams like the Denver Nuggets, Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks. Doncic has the ability to be a tone-setter and a closer, with his first-quarter scoring numbers being very high of late.

As the Lakers make strides to improve their position in a jam-packed Western Conference standings, they will look to go on a run that can lead them to their 18th NBA championship banner. Looking to tie their hated-rival Boston Celtics yet again in amount of banners hung in the rafters, the Lakers are more determined than ever to begin a new dynasty and show the sports world what they stand for and deliver on throughout the ages. A championship standard of golden proportions in a city constantly starving for success for their teams and for themselves. Along with the Los Angeles Dodgers(who have built themselves into a position to have their own dynasty over the next several years), Los Angeles Rams(with a recent Super Bowl victory and playoff contention status in the NFL), and other teams with star status around them, the Lakers look to stand out once again and prove to everyone why they are the premier sports franchise in Southern California and in the entire nation. Because if they can acquire big stars such as Luka Doncic and have continual team success with him, that comes to show what creating greatness and maintaining it stands for. The sky is the limit for the Lakers, and for all their fans out there(myself included), let’s hope they can reach it for many years to come.