LOS ANGELES — Luka Doncic cupped his hands over his face in anguish, lying under the basket on the baseline at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City during an April 2 game that was already well on its way to being a blowout – a feeling the Lakers would endure three times over in the second round of the playoffs before succumbing to elimination in a final fight to the buzzer on Monday night.
Losing hurts, guard Austin Reaves said after the game that night. Doncic was hurt.
Doncic laid motionless on the court, suffering from the mental whiplash of what would eventually be diagnosed as a Grade 2 left hamstring strain that would cost him the rest of the season. Reaves shouted at heckling fans. Lakers coach JJ Redick placed his hand on Doncic’s back as the Slovenian star got back on his feet and slowly trekked to the locker room.
“Have some respect,” Reaves said to the fans with an expletive or two thrown in for emphasis, as LeBron James stood behind his 27-year-old teammate in support with his hands on his hips. “Have some respect.”
James spoke that night, calling Doncic’s injury “the last thing you want to see.” Doncic was fresh off a March run in which he led the Lakers to a 15-2 record, won Western Conference Player of the Month honors, recorded a 60-point game in Miami and was on his way to leading the league in scoring at 33.5 points per game.
Reaves and James, in the meantime, embraced their roles as the Lakers’ second and third scoring options, respectively.
“I don’t know what the role will be asked of me,” James said April 2 after Doncic’s injury. “I don’t know. We have to see what that role will be. Been in this one for a minute now, so it’ll be an adjustment, but we’ll see.”
As Reaves took his turn in front of the media, just two lockers over from James, a few minutes later, Doncic quietly sulked from the showers and took a seat at his locker to the left of James and to the right of Reaves, whom he’s built a bromance with since arriving via the still-stunning February 2025 trade between the Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks.
“You don’t want to see anybody get hurt,” Reaves said of Doncic on April 2. “But you just, you know, hold on to some faith for the best news possible.”
Carrying the load
Two days later, James would have to fill a role – the only star remaining as faith turned to desperation when Reaves was ruled out for the rest of the regular season after suffering a Grade 2 left oblique strain in the same game when Doncic was hurt. Sifting through the rubble of the “what ifs” in the Lakers’ 2025-26 season, that early April night in Oklahoma turned what was left of their season into a road of incertitude that reached its end Monday night when the Thunder completed a sweep of the teams’ second-round playoff series.
Redick said he never wondered about the possibility of Doncic returning. As it turned out, their season ended with Doncic still weeks away from potentially suiting up based on the eight-week timetable the star guard said doctors gave him following an MRI on his hamstring.
James picked up the pieces – returning to the leading role after sliding into the background during a season when he had the lowest scoring average of his 23-year NBA career (20.9 ppg in 60 regular-season games) – to help the Lakers eliminate the favored Houston Rockets 4-2 in the first round.
“I’ve never been a third option in my life,” James told reporters following the Lakers’ season-ending loss Monday night. “So to be able to thrive in that role for that period of time and then have to step back into the role that I’ve been accustomed with over my career, over my life … that was pretty cool for me at this stage in my career.”
Reaves did return to the fold in time to help the Lakers close out the series with the Rockets, and he played the entirety of the Thunder series, but even Redick admitted Sunday, with the Lakers trailing 3-0 in the best-of-seven series, that it would be hard to turn an expected four-to-six-week recovery into a 100%-healthy playmaker. Reaves never turned to excuses as he tried to rediscover his form after the extended layoff and around-the-clock treatment, repeatedly saying that he needed to “play better” with more consistency.
“I think being out … took a toll on whatever level of fitness he was in,” Redick said. “It’s not going to be there. You can’t replicate an NBA game and you can’t approximate an NBA playoff game, no matter how hard you work. And he worked his ass off to get back.”
Reaves (career-high 23.3 ppg on 49% shooting from the field) is expected to decline his player option for the 2026-27 season, which would make him an unrestricted free agent and eligible for a five-year, $241 million max-level contract this summer. He has quickly built a significant bond with Doncic, which could play to the Lakers’ favor if they decide to resist doling out cash elsewhere, and unload a truck of cash and reward their undrafted free agent-turned-star.
Pelinka, on Tuesday morning, said “both sides have made it abundantly clear” that they would like to see Reaves remain in a Lakers uniform. Other NBA teams can only offer Reaves up to four years and close to $178 million.
The 41-year-old James, however, is mulling whether to continue his Hall-of-Fame career or retire. If he is interested in an unprecedented 24th NBA season, it remains to be seen whether he would do so as a Laker. Pelinka said Tuesday that he’d like to see both James and Reaves on next year’s roster.
“We want that core to be back together,” Redick said Tuesday.
James’ son, second-year reserve guard Bronny James, remains under contract through the 2027-28 season (the Lakers own a team option for that fourth season).
Constant evolution
The Lakers are firmly Doncic’s team, but how the rest of the roster looks going into the third year of Redick-led basketball is up for debate as free agency – along with the continued shift in franchise perspective since Mark Walter assumed primary ownership from governor Jeanie Buss – and the offseason is likely to overhaul the Lakers’ image in the months ahead.
Even the business side of the operation, with new President of Business Operations Lon Rosen in charge, is expected to continue to evolve, a league source told the Southern California News Group. Signs of that can be seen already with the G League affiliate’s relocation to Coachella Valley and new hires such as bringing in Ryan Kantor as vice president of global partnerships. On the basketball side, Pelinka said Tuesday the Lakers are currently in the hiring process for a pair of assistant general managers.
Redick, on the other hand, has impressed many in the NBA during his first two seasons as a head coach. He led the Lakers to consecutive 50-plus-win seasons – the first time the franchise has done so since 2011 – despite having the combination of James, Reaves and Doncic available together for just 29 of 92 possible regular-season and playoff games since Doncic arrived.
James missed the start of this past season with sciatica; Reaves suffered left oblique and left calf strains; Doncic missed time before the All-Star break with a left hamstring strain before ending his season with the more severe strain.
Under Redick, the Lakers finished 53-29 and improved on last spring’s first-round playoff exit – reaching the second round for the first time since 2023 – while getting strong postseason performances from veterans Marcus Smart (who holds a player option at about $5.4 million for next season) and Luke Kennard, a trade-deadline acquisition.
“I love coaching because there’s always room for growth and I’m excited,” Redick said Tuesday. “I wish the offseason had ended on June 21st or whatever date the (NBA Finals) is over, but I’m excited for another opportunity to grow this offseason and again prepare myself for another year of growth as a coach.”
Addressing team depth
Kennard, who shot a league-leading 47.8% from 3-point range, added to his sharpshooter reputation to become a leading playmaker out of necessity over the final month of the regular season. He recorded his first career triple-double in April and scored a playoff-career-high 27 points in the series opener against the Rockets. Kennard is an unrestricted free agent.
Like Smart, center Deandre Ayton – who averaged 12.5 ppg and 8.0 rebounds during a rollercoaster season as the team’s starting big man – holds a player option ($8.1 million) for next season. Both came to the Lakers last offseason after being bought out of their respective contracts – Ayton with the Portland Trail Blazers and Smart with the Washington Wizards – during free agency.
“I haven’t really thought about nothing else (besides the team), to be honest,” Ayton said Monday night, adding that he hasn’t made a decision on his option. “I have a little break to myself.”
Forward Rui Hachimura (11.5 ppg, 51.4% from the field) and backup center Jaxson Hayes (7.5 ppg, 4.4 rpg) are both unrestricted free agents. So is veteran big man Maxi Kleber (43 games), who joined the Lakers with Doncic last season, and two-way contract players Drew Timme and Chris Manon.
Hayes, who secured Slovenian citizenship to play alongside Doncic internationally, said Monday night that he’d like to return to the Lakers if offered the chance.
Forwards Jarred Vanderbilt (under contract through 2027-28) and Jake LaRavia (through 2026-27), two of the best defenders on the team, faded from the Lakers’ rotations late in the playoffs. If Reaves declines his player option, Vanderbilt ($12.4 million) would be owed more next season than anyone still on the books other than Doncic.
Bench depth is where the Lakers struggled the most, something the ridiculously deep Thunder exploited throughout their series. While Oklahoma City deployed its 10th or 11th men at times, Redick stuck to eight- or nine-man rotations, hamstrung by inefficiencies across the bottom half of the roster.
“I think depth is really important, athleticism and youth,” Pelinka said. “We have a lot of components of that on our roster, but we need to add to it. I think those are some of the key north stars that we need to look at.”
The next steps
Competing for a championship – especially with the possibility of Doncic, Reaves and James reuniting still possible – will remain top of mind for the Lakers. They might need James to take a pay cut, should he return, to fill out the rest of the roster with quality options to avoid a repeat result in the 2026-27 season.
But finding an enforcer in the frontcourt and bench quality – something players like Rockets forward Tari Eason and Denver Nuggets forward Peyton Watson could offer on the free-agent market – would dramatically help the Lakers schematically. They also have to decide if Ayton is the center they want to roll with heading into next season, whether or not the 7-footer picks up his player option.
The Lakers own the 25th pick in the first round of next month’s NBA draft, a chance to add another young player from a deeper-than-normal draft class. Former University of Virginia coach Tony Bennett joined the Lakers as a draft advisor to Pelinka in late February.
The Lakers will certainly look different next fall. But the organizational goal remains the same – year after year – cementing themselves back among the league’s top tier of contenders.
Having Doncic to build around is already a step in the right direction.
“The archetype of the roster that we want is going to be retrofitted around Luka and the things he needs,” Pelinka said. “Clearly, he’s that leader and that player for the future that we want to build the right way around.”