Whenever he has been able to, Lakers star Luka Doncic has showed up for his Slovenian national team. In fact, in his first-ever major international tournament with the senior team, at Eurobasket in 2017, Doncic was just 18 years old and helped the team to the gold medal, alongside friend and mentor Goran Dragic.
Slovenia has not had the level of success since. They lost the bronze medal game in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, were sixth in Eurobasket 2022, were seventh in the World Cup in 2023, and failed to qualify for the Olympics last summer in Paris.
But he will be back at it this summer in Eurobasket, where he will lead Slovenia beginning in August. It’s certainly important to him.
As he once said of playing for the national team: “It’s a lot of feelings to play for your country. You basically give up your summer to play for your country. I respect everybody who does that. It’s really hard, you have to go to practice but you want to be on a beach somewhere. But I always enjoy it, every moment, playing for my national team.”
Jul 29, 2021; Saitama, Japan; Slovenia player Luka Doncic (77) reacts as Slovenia plays Japan during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Saitama Super Arena. Mandatory Credit: Yukihito Taguchi-Imagn Images
Slovenia player Luka Doncic (77) reacts as Slovenia plays Japan during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Saitama Super Arena.
Mandatory Credit: Yukihito Taguchi-Imagn Images
And on Tuesday, the president of the Basketball Federation of Slovenia, Matej Erjavec, announced that Doncic would definitely be in for 2025. He told Slovenia TV that a brief conversation with the Lakers led to some certainty on the issue.
“Within two minutes in a meeting with Rob Pelinka, he stressed, ‘Well, you will get Luka and one coach, and that’s it’. And with that, we were done,” Erjavec said, via Eurohoops.net. “There was no debate at all.”
What is of interest for the Lakers and their fans is that the team will be taking the step of sending a coach along with Doncic. That’s promising. After the Mavericks supposedly traded him away because of his inability to stay in condition, Doncic will be under pressure to get into top shape before reporting to Lakers camp next September.
There won’t be much time between the end of the Eurobasket tournament in mid-September and the opening of camp in late September, so if Doncic is in shape for Slovenia, it stands to reason he will be in shape for the Lakers.