{"id":198185,"date":"2025-10-08T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198185\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T18:50:09","slug":"lakers-lebron-james-on-luke-doncics-weight-before-nba-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198185\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers’ LeBron James on Luke Doncic’s Weight Before NBA Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> are hoping that the duo of LeBron James<\/a> and Luka Doncic can go further this season after being bounced by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs in April. Doncic was a surprise trade by the Dallas Mavericks to the Lakers last season, and it took some time for the point guard to find his footing in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

More News: Lakers\u2019 LeBron James, Bronny James Shamed by Former No 1 Pick<\/a><\/p>\n

There was speculation that Mavs general manager Nico Harrison wanted to trade Doncic in part due to the star’s weight and conditioning habits, though Harrison later denied<\/a> those reports. During the offseason, Doncic made a noticeable effort to get in shape and lose weight. <\/p>\n

\"LeBron<\/p>\n

More News: Lakers\u2019 LeBron James Under Fire for \u2018Decision\u2019 Reveal<\/a><\/p>\n

Doncic, 26, weighed approximately 270 pounds<\/a> in Dallas, though the Lakers listed him at 230 pounds after the trade. During the preseason, Los Angeles lists the five-time NBA All-Star at six-foot-seven, 244<\/a> pounds. <\/p>\n

During an appearance on the “Mind the Game” podcast, Steve Nash asked James about Doncic’s weight loss. James noticed Doncic looked a lot faster during EuroBasket this summer. He believes the weight loss will help Doncic recover better after games.<\/p>\n

“He just looks, obviously, a little bit quicker, you know, a little bit more functional,” James said of Doncic. “But I think more importantly, I think what a lot of people will not see is the recovery now. I think when your body is in top-tier shape and you feel so much better. It’s not the actual game. It’s not like Luka’s game is going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Despite his weight, Doncic finished last season averaging 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game. <\/p>\n

James said he was proud of Doncic for making an effort to get better before the upcoming NBA season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, so I’m super duper proud of him,” James said. “Obviously, he don’t need to hear from me. I mean, it’s what he wanted to do for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doncic and James did not play in the Lakers’ first two preseason games. Los Angeles has four more preseason games before they start the regular season against the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 21.<\/p>\n

For more on the Lakers and the NBA<\/a>, head to Newsweek Sports.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers are hoping that the duo of LeBron James and Luka Doncic can go further…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,2327,8231,12887,459,82],"class_list":["post-198185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}