{"id":909185,"date":"2026-09-29T00:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T00:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909185\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T00:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T00:46:16","slug":"luka-doncic-and-austin-reaves-ready-to-take-charge-of-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909185\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves ready to take charge of Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The bromance between Luka Doncic<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a> remains strong and it\u2019s a bond the Lakers<\/a> will lean on with LeBron James<\/a> no longer on the team.<\/p>\n

After eight years of James being the Lakers\u2019 leader, the role now will be shared by Doncic and Reaves.<\/p>\n

Doncic already took a step in that direction when he invited his teammates to his home country of Slovenia in August for a bonding trip.<\/p>\n

Reaves chided Doncic about losing in rowing, bowling and golf while they were in Slovenia together. <\/p>\n

Reminded about it Monday at the Lakers\u2019 media day, Doncic immediately retorted: \u201cI beat him in golf two days ago. … He didn\u2019t say that, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n

Doncic paused and smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key was I was playing great golf,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cHe gave me some strokes, I\u2019m not going to lie \u2014 as he should.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reaves spoke about the events his group won in Slovenia and how they beat Doncic in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won the rowing, we won the golf, we won bowling,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cLuka tried to put on a blue shirt when his rowing team lost, which is crazy. But he did host us, so we let him hold the first-place trophy for once.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two friends and teammates have developed a closeness that their teammates have noticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get along so well that it\u2019s kind of easy for them to co-lead this team \u2014 in different ways sometimes,\u201d Jake LaRavia said. \u201cI think sometimes Luka leads by example and we watch him and we watch how he goes about himself. AR can sometimes be a bit more vocal. But I think they both do a great job at what they are good at it when it comes to being leaders for this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doncic led the NBA in scoring last season (33.5 points per game) and was third in assists (8.3). He averaged 7.7 rebounds and shot 47.6%, including 36.6% from three-point range.<\/p>\n

\"Lakers <\/p>\n

Lakers guard Luka Doncic speaks during the team\u2019s media day in El Segundo on Monday.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thaye r\/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The three-year, $165-million contract extension Doncic signed last year kicked in this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it\u2019s a new challenge,\u201d he said about his leadership role. \u201cI was in this position in my career a lot of times, so it\u2019s not new to me. But I feel great, I feel excited, and like I said, I\u2019m ready to go. It\u2019s been a long time since I played basketball, so I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reaves is entering his sixth season with the Lakers, making him the longest-tenured player on the team. In June, he signed a four-year, $180-million deal, the largest contract for an undrafted player in NBA history.<\/p>\n

Reaves earned it by averaging career-highs in points (23.2) and rebounds (4.7).<\/p>\n

The Lakers have nine new players and Reaves knows he\u2019ll need to provide guidance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s different for everybody,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to lead the same way Bron does. I\u2019m not going to lead the same way Luka does. I like to do things a little different. I was talking about doing more one-on-one conversations. There will be times where I need to speak up in group settings and I\u2019ll do that when the time comes. But I think you just got to be true to yourself and do what\u2019s comfortable for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doncic played in just 64 games last season. He missed the last five regular-season games and all of the playoffs with a left hamstring strain. After spending time in Europe rehabbing his hamstring over the summer, Doncic said he\u2019s healthy and ready to go with no restrictions when the Lakers begin training camp Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know I had a lot of time, just taking it slowly, not taking no risks,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cBut right now, I\u2019m feeling great. I feel rested. Mentally I feel great, so I can\u2019t wait just to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Jaden Hardy, Kevon Looney, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Collin Sexton, Matisse Thybulle and Ziaire Williams among the newcomers on the Lakers, Doncic and Reaves are looking forward to what comes next.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like everybody that we signed,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of underrated guys. … Now training camp is going to help us a lot, focus on basketball, get to know what they like on the court, but I\u2019m very excited to play with all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bromance between Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves remains strong and it\u2019s a bond the Lakers will lean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,30097,63,62916,1862,755,2873,14294,11473,590,321,17330,26731,85,3018,59131,6618,1547],"class_list":["post-909185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-austin-reaves","tag-australia","tag-bowling","tag-game","tag-golf","tag-lakers","tag-lot","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-point","tag-rowing","tag-slovenia","tag-sports","tag-team","tag-teammate","tag-time","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}