EL SEGUNDO — Here’s what they’re not going to do.
The JJ Redick-coached Lakers are not going to treat the 2025 playoffs like just a first take.
The LeBron James-led Lakers are not going to put off till next year what they can accomplish this year.
The Luka Doncic-led Lakers are not going to let a suddenly long, bright runway soften the blunt-force appeal of the moment.
The third-seeded Lakers are not going to step on the court for Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference Playoff series against the sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday and take the opportunity for granted.
No, they’re a bunch of “guys that are willing to go to war,” in Doncic’s words, soft-spoken hyperbole, athlete-speak at its finest.
They’re gamers, winners, realists: They know there are no guarantees, no telling what’s around the corner, and no time like the present.
No magic wands, either. No fending off Father Time forever.
And no pairing on Earth as special as the duo set to do battle together for the first time in a playoff setting, Luka and LeBron performing at almost astronomical levels, somewhere near the Von Karman Line – even though one of them is 40 years old.
I still don’t understand why anyone – almost everyone? – assumed that doing the Doncic deal meant the Lakers were taking a gap year on their expectations of exceptionalism.
I suppose folks saw an imperfect roster, short on talent in the post. I saw a roster that might actually be perfect for their 3-ball-happy, smallish-ball-loving modern head coach.
Maybe people watched the window that was closing be thrust wide open, and it felt so good to breathe the fresh air that it took off some of the pressure that had been building. But I saw a team starring LeBron James and Luka Doncic. Today.
I saw opponents having to deal with a couple of the NBA’s coldest on-court killers, big guys built for the biggest of moments, both of them basketball-brilliant, with permanent track records to back that up.
I saw replacing 32-year-old Anthony Davis with the 26-year-old Doncic being about now and later. It made the Lakers different, but it didn’t make them worse.
I see it as a reminder: Sometimes, greed is good. Sometimes you’ve got to want the whole world, and to want it given to you now.
Khobi Price, SCNG’s Lakers’ beat writer, reminded me of that 2023 video of LeBron, the four-time NBA champion, encouraging his teammates after a victory at Sacramento? “Let’s get greedy,” he told them. “Let’s get real greedy.” The Lakers had won five straight; the man wanted more.
And then Russell Westbrook interjected with such a record scratch of a counter-proposal it felt like a spoof: “Just keep having fun, bro,” Brodie said. “Be happy for the next man, keep having fun, bro. Win, lose or draw, just keep having fun, bro.” And the Lakers lost the next three – good times, indeed!
I mean, sure. It’s basketball. It’s supposed to be fun.
Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards is going to have fun.
He and his teammates, who have lost only four times since March 2, are coming to L.A. hoping to have a great time giving the Lakers a hard time. They have size where the Lakers don’t. They’ve got the world picking against them as motivation. They’ve got the experience of last year’s run to the Western Conference finals – and the experience of getting torched there by Doncic, then Dallas’ star.
So, hear, hear. Here’s to a fun series – that the Lakers should win.
And to a postseason – which feels truly unpredictable, unscriptable – that they could win.
If the Lakers get past Minnesota, they’ll get either the second-seeded Houston Rockets or seventh-seeded Golden State Warriors. And if they get past them, to get through the Western Conference, it’ll be the Oklahoma City Thunder, top-seeded but without much postseason tread, or Denver, the Clippers or, less likely, the Memphis Grizzlies or Dallas.
Here’s what those potential combinations of opponents aren’t going to do these LeBron-and-Luka-led Lakers: Make them blink.
“The urgency is ever-present,” Lakers’ general manager Rob Pelinka said at Doncic’s Feb. 4 introductory news conference. “From the first day I started taking this job until I sit in the chair right now, there’s always an urgency to win championships. That’s what the Lakers set out to do.”
Always, always, always. Which is not remotely reasonable or realistic, of course, even for an organization that has hung 17 banners. Because, actually, winning championships is hard. That’s why some teams have never done it. Why so many of the game’s greatest players never did. Why, say, a Denver Nuggets team featuring Nikola Jokic playing as well as anyone could for the past five years, has won just one.
You need for the stars to align and to align the right stars, opportunistic game-changers who live for the moments that might or might not come back around. You never know.
Nothing is perfect; life happens, kings age, rosters evolve, rules change, Austin Reaves will deserve a raise when his player option comes up ahead of the 2025-26 season.
So here’s what they are going to do Saturday: Everything they can to seize the day, taking nothing for granted – least of all LeBron’s new partnership with Luka, however long it lasts at its current level, however deep into this postseason it takes them. However much fun that might be.
Related Articles
Lakers vs. Timberwolves: First-round scouting report, prediction Luka Doncic says Lakers are ‘willing to go to war’ for an NBA title Lakers preparing for evolved Anthony Edwards Lakers’ JJ Redick eager for playoff preparations against Timberwolves Lakers matching up against Timberwolves in first-round playoff series Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Swanson: For Luka, LeBron and the Lakers, no time like the present )
Also on site :
- Billboard’s 2025 Top Music Lawyers Revealed
- Semi-truck explosion, fire closes Interstate 65 in NW Indiana
- Cannes Film Festival’s Official Poster(s) For 2025 Honor Claude Lelouch’s ‘A Man And A Woman’