Guard Luka Doncic looks like he’s in maybe the best shape of his career this season, but it wasn’t all that long ago when his conditioning was a major knock on his game.
Just last season, he faced a lot of criticism for not being in the best of shape, and Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd reportedly wasn’t thrilled with Doncic’s conditioning before he got moved to the Los Angeles Lakers in a trade.
“Luka Doncic hasn’t acknowledged Jason Kidd since he’s been back — since they’ve played against each other, in those games, Lakers-Mavs games,” Shams Charania said. “I think there’s an understanding there that Jason Kidd also wasn’t one of the ones that was thrilled with Luka Doncic’s conditioning — different things — near his exit.”
It is alleged that at one point in Doncic’s swan song with the Mavericks, he was held out of games to improve his conditioning even though the team officially claimed his reason for being sidelined was a wrist injury.
But it’s arguable if the Mavericks and Kidd should have been as concerned about Doncic’s conditioning as they were. The season before they traded him he carried Dallas to its first NBA Finals berth since 2011, so it’s not like the shape Doncic was in was negatively impacting his play or the team’s success in a major way.
If Kidd and the Mavericks did decide to move on from Doncic largely because of his conditioning issues, they seemingly jumped the gun on that decision. Not only has he made the trade age poorly from the Mavericks’ side of the coin with his play as a Laker, but less than one year since he was with the team, Doncic is seemingly in peak physical position and playing some of the best basketball of his career.
In seven games played so far in the 2025-26 regular season, he’s averaging 37.1 points on 49.1 percent shooting from the field as well as 9.4 rebounds and 9.1 assists per game. He went off for 38 points and seven assists in the Lakers’ most recent game versus the Charlotte Hornets.
The Slovenian will hope to start a new win streak for the Lakers by leading them to a victory over the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night. The Thunder have played 12 games up to this point, yet they have only one loss.