{"id":118330,"date":"2025-08-04T13:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T13:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/118330\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T13:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T13:57:09","slug":"luka-doncic-shaqs-shadow-and-the-lakers-new-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/118330\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic, Shaq\u2019s Shadow, and the Lakers\u2019 New Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lakers once let a superstar go because he wouldn\u2019t get into shape. Now they\u2019ve bet everything on one who finally did.<\/p>\n

The journey begins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Lakers used just those three words on their social media accounts on Saturday, echoing Luka Doncic\u2019s announcement of his three-year, $165 million maximum extension with the team\u2014a contract with a player option in the final year that, should he decline it, would make him eligible for the 10-year-veteran maximum extension, currently estimated at $417 million over five years. The journey begins. Curious wording, given that Doncic has already played 33 games in forum blue and gold. But sometimes semantics bow to a deeper, unavoidable truth. With Doncic\u2019s blessing, Los Angeles has secured both its present and future. With those three words, the storied franchise has effectively announced a new era, one that has been consciously designed from the moment the Lakers made the most surprising trade the league has ever seen<\/a> back in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luka adds a certain novelty to the Lakers\u2019 all-time constellation of cornerstone stars. For six decades, the franchise\u2019s very best perimeter players (Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Magic Johnson, and Kobe Bryant) have been homegrown lifers, whereas its defining interior titans (Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Shaquille O\u2019Neal) were brought into orbit. LeBron James, in his omnipositionality, rendered the dividing line moot. And in so many ways, Luka follows in James\u2019s footsteps\u2014this time, as a mutation of what had been the order of things within the Lakers organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doncic has the talent, style, and star power to simultaneously embody the spirit of the two greatest Lakers ever in Magic and Kobe. He has Magic\u2019s magnetism, his joy, and imagination, the touch and vision to create miracles out of thin air; he has the ruthless aggression and sense of on-court supremacy of Kobe, the ability and drive to do the hard thing the hard way\u2014and less than two seasons ago, was just eight points shy of Kobe\u2019s 81-point performance in 2006, which effectively stands as the NBA\u2019s modern-day single-game scoring record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yet, amid his transformational summer in the lead-up to the extension signing, I can\u2019t help but think of Doncic within a more specific context of Lakers history, his circumstantial connection to another defining Lakers star. As Luka is paraded as the literal picture of Men\u2019s Health<\/a> after years of questions about his commitment to physical conditioning, I\u2019ve found myself thinking about how the factors that brought Doncic to L.A. in 2025 are the same ones that drove Shaq out in 2004. In that sense, Luka closes a loop in the organization that arose around the time he was born. (Lakers history doesn\u2019t always repeat, but it often rhymes in the same AABB scheme that every one of Shaq\u2019s rap tracks employs.)<\/p>\n

The serious questions surrounding Shaq\u2019s weight began in earnest in the fall of 1999, when O\u2019Neal tipped the scales at 340 pounds <\/a>during a mandatory weigh-in at training camp. He\u2019d been cultivating mass<\/a> in an effort to steel himself from an oncoming onslaught from opposing centers hacking at him every possession down the floor. \u201cI\u2019m not unhappy about it,\u201d Lakers coach Phil Jackson told reporters at the time. \u201cI\u2019m not going to disagree with Shaq about those types of things because he gets fouled harder than anyone in the game\u2026 But all the other parameters going into it, getting up and down the court, the idea that he\u2019s had a knee that was injured two years ago, he\u2019s had the stomach injury, all those things are better served if there\u2019s less weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, that 1999-00 season would go on to be arguably the best of Shaq\u2019s career, a pivotal MVP-winning breakthrough, fully leveraging his overwhelming size and strength. It would be the first of three consecutive Finals MVP seasons\u2014a feat that only he and Michael Jordan know anything about. Growing up, watching Shaq\u2019s most dominant years was the first time I\u2019d consciously decoupled peak athleticism with peak performance. Shaq\u2019s LSU and Orlando Magic days were an otherworldly terror of unbridled explosiveness, but he couldn\u2019t affect winning the way a much heftier, much slower Shaq could. But weight, fair or not, is always cast as a burden, even in a unique case like O\u2019Neal. Playing alongside Kobe, whose maniacal work ethic had quickly become legend, Shaq\u2019s weight fluctuations became a marker for unseriousness when it could have just as easily been construed as a quasi-commitment to fortifying his castle walls. Lord knows those walls were constantly bombarded.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, Dallas had its first serious discussions about Luka\u2019s weight a few years ago. \u201cThe Mavericks\u2019 key figures have talked to Doncic about decreasing his preferred playing weight this summer,\u201d Mavericks beat reporter Tim Cato wrote in 2023<\/a>. It came amid buzz circulating online about Luka\u2019s physique<\/a> at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, looking as svelte as he does these days in L.A. The weight didn\u2019t stay off\u2014if it did, perhaps none of this [gesticulates wildly, trying to convey the entirety of the past six months] would have happened. Yet, of course, despite the rumblings and apparent conditioning issues, that 2023-24 season would go on to be the best of Luka\u2019s career, culminating in an improbable Finals run despite battling through a thoracic contusion, a right knee sprain, and left ankle soreness. Peak Luka, as we knew him, was doughy and hobbled. Is it so wrong to think that might just be the case?\u00a0<\/p>\n

If this beach bod world tour he\u2019s been on holds him more accountable as far as maintaining his streamlined figure, perhaps Doncic will offer the Lakers organization and its fans something Shaq never could in his prime: an opportunity to fairly compare and contrast. For years, Shaq made summer headlines by going on intensive cardio workout plans or hiring an ex-Marine<\/a> to work him into shape. But in his final five campaigns with the Lakers, Shaq came into every season heavier than the last, besieged by a nagging toe injury that he\u2019d delayed surgery on. (Still, he was a top-five MVP candidate in four of those five seasons.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal swore by coming into training camp at 75 percent and gradually working his way back up. \u201cYou can\u2019t come into basketball season in game shape unless you play every day, and I couldn\u2019t do that anymore without my body breaking down,\u201d he wrote in his 2011 memoir<\/a>. Doncic, on the other hand, has historically had the opposite problem: Summers have been spent playing basketball incessantly, if not for skills training, then for his country; he always arrived in game shape, but with additional mileage. It wasn\u2019t the offseason that was the issue; it was the season itself. The all-consuming limitations of an NBA travel schedule exacerbated the effects of never mind any injuries he\u2019d accrue that would limit his time on the court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doncic in year 8 offers a sort of wish fulfillment, a way to realize the imagined form of Luka in the minds of the basketball public. There are certain unquestionable benefits to carrying less weight on the court. Doncic may not suddenly transform into OG Anunoby, but he\u2019ll have more energy to expend on the defensive end. Some of the latent explosiveness Doncic occasionally brandished in his early Dallas days could return. Luka dunked just twice last season; once with the Mavericks, once with the Lakers. He attempted 27 dunks in his rookie season, eight more tries than Doncic had in his past three seasons (19) combined. Luka\u2019s first blow-by dunk at Crypto.com Arena this season might register a higher decibel reading than Ben Simmons\u2019s first career 3-pointer at the Wells Fargo Center.<\/a><\/p>\n

Luka\u2019s camp has suggested that this transformation was always part of the plan, that it would have happened even if there hadn\u2019t been an element of revenge from getting blindsided midseason. That makes sense\u2014dudes can take a long-ass time figuring out what\u2019s good for them! But hopefully the expectation of this grand resculpting project is centered on longevity: Doncic\u2019s current average of 64 games played per season falls short of the NBA\u2019s dreaded 65-game rule for awards qualification, but more importantly, we\u2019ve seen what Luka can do in the playoffs\u2014now, we want to see him do it in peak condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That endurance from April to June is more important than mining for speed and explosiveness that hadn\u2019t previously been on display. The wonder in Doncic\u2019s game has always been apparent, no matter his playing weight. There are few players in the world whose body and mind are as coordinated. The way he seamlessly transfers from a weightless behind-the-back dribble, adjusting the length and width of his strides, to delivering a thundering shoulder as a means of creating new passing windows or scoring opportunities\u2014that\u2019s where Luka Magic lies, at the intersection of grace and bewildering power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is an impulse to romanticize the road that athletes take to get closer to a Vitruvian ideal<\/a>, but not everyone has access to the Giannis Antetokounmpo path. Admittedly, part of the joy in watching Luka\u2019s development over the years has been observing how his talent shines irrespective of his body\u2019s limitations in a given season. Speed kills, but it also fades; there is a sense that whatever governs Luka\u2019s basketball mastery might be eternal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I was a good basketball player back then, no matter what people say,\u201d Doncic recently said, perhaps alluding to rumors that he\u2019d weighed as much as 270 pounds last season as a member of the Mavericks. \u201cI think it was the next step in my career. At the end, I\u2019m still 26 and I have a long way to go.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Wonder Boy is 26. Old enough to know better, and young enough for that to matter. Like I said, there\u2019s time to compare, contrast, and transpose these various versions of Luka. All the what-ifs anyone has had about Luka\u2019s game can still be answered in his prime. If this is truly a revenge tour, we\u2019ll see the fruits of his labor shortly. For Shaq, all the what-ifs only deepened with time. When the Lakers eventually found his conditioning untenable and unworthy of a long-term extension, they traded him to the Heat in 2004. In Miami, shedding weight was an act of revenge, sure, but it was also a mandate from the front office. Team president Pat Riley had installed his infamous body fat requirements for the Heat in those days: guards had to be at 6 percent, forwards at 7 to 8 percent, and centers at 10 percent. In his final years with the Lakers, Shaq regularly hovered above 16 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPat told me he wanted me slim, so what I did this summer, I just laid off the weights. My other summers have been weight, weight, weight,\u201d Shaq told reporters in 2004. \u201cBecause I take a beating. I\u2019m the NBA\u2019s best NFL player, so I wanted to get real big and solid so I could take those beatings, and muscle weighs more than fat. But this summer, no weights, all cardio. Got that down to 335 and hopefully by the end of training camp, be 325, 330.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shaq\u2019s listed weight in Miami was 325, and there were glowing accounts and reviews of his fitness then. But he hardly looks back at his time in Miami fondly. \u201cThere\u2019s no question by trying to get my body fat down I became more injury-prone,\u201d Shaq wrote in his memoir<\/a>. \u201cI never had any of the ticky-tacky injuries I got until I went to Miami. I had no cushion, no buffering. Pat forgot to take into account the pounding my body took, day in and day out, going for those rebounds he wanted me to get. I was too much of a power player to take that kind of abuse on that lean of a body. I had more injuries in my time with Miami than anywhere else in my career.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The question of Shaq\u2019s post-Lakers decline became a chicken-or-egg conundrum: Were his injury-marred seasons in Miami due to the lack of natural insulation he\u2019d grown accustomed to in L.A., or was he suffering from the cumulative stress on his body at the knife\u2019s edge of his gilded years? That\u2019s a distinction between Shaq\u2019s and Luka\u2019s respective ousters: the Lakers got rid of a 32-year-old Shaq because they were afraid of his post-prime years; the Mavs got rid of a 25-year-old Luka because they were afraid of supporting his prime years. The former is defensible, even logical; the latter is losing a game of 4D chess against yourself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, NBA summers are all about optics and PR battles. For all his health struggles in Miami to come, Shaq nailed his shot at revenge during his first season with the Heat, finishing as the MVP runner-up. Given how intent Luka and his representation are in publicizing this transformation across numerous media, Doncic has already secured a flawless victory. How that translates to the season is still in question. For all of the added attention this time around, Luka hasn\u2019t really shown us anything we hadn\u2019t already seen from him before. Will the rigors of the season fell him, as they have in the past, or has he built up the necessary resistance over these past three months? Not even Luka can know for sure at this stage. But in the meantime, what we do know is, in just half a year, Luka and the Lakers organization have found a common understanding that seemed to elude Doncic in Dallas. The Lakers went out of their way to show their trust in their newfound star; Doncic, in turn, rewarded them with a commitment\u2014both in conditioning and on paper\u2014that the Mavericks desperately wanted but ultimately denied themselves that privilege.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a 2005 postseason interview with the late Lakers owner Jerry Buss, at the end of a campaign that saw the Lakers miss the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade, Buss was asked if he had any regrets trading O\u2019Neal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s 60 pounds lighter in Miami than he was in Los Angeles. My reaction was: If he was not willing to get in shape\u2014which he had five, eight years, some number of times to do, and we urged him\u2014it seems that the motivation for him to lose weight was to trade him,\u201d Buss told reporters. \u201cAs you know, Shaq is in his middle-30s and it might be difficult to build around him. I suspect if I had known he was going to lose 60 pounds I probably would have made a different decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time will tell if Nico Harrison musters a similar admission this time next year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Danny Chau<\/p>\n

<\/a>Chau writes about the NBA and gustatory pleasures, among other things. He is the host of \u2018Shift Meal.\u2019 He is based in Toronto.