Luka Dončić has been dominant for the Los Angeles Lakers this season, but he doesn’t feel like he is playing the best basketball of his career.
“I don’t think so. I think I have to play better,” he told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “I feel like I can play better a lot of nights. I don’t know if this is the best basketball I’ve played just because of points, but I feel like I can do way more stuff.”
When asked what he can do better, he said, “At the start of the season, I was playing great defense. I have to get back to that. Limit my turnovers, be more efficient, get more rebounds, get more assists. All of that, I feel like I can do a lot better.”
While Dončić highlighted some areas he believes need improvement, he seems to be hitting his peak at 26 years old.
He leads the NBA at 34.7 points per game, which would be the highest mark of his career if it continued. He led the league in scoring in 2023-24 for the Dallas Mavericks at 33.9 points per game, which was his career-best mark coming into this season.
What’s more, Dončić is leading the league in free-throw makes (9.9) and attempts (12.3) per game, which has allowed him to be an even more efficient scorer. And he has done so while remaining a willing facilitator who is posting 8.8 assists a night.
Defense has never been a particular strong point of his game, but it was notable Dončić mentioned cutting down his turnovers. His 4.4 per game would be the second-most of his career if it continued throughout the rest of the season.
Still, any criticism is mostly nitpicking one of the game’s best players at this point.
And he is putting up these numbers and serving as an on-court leader for a team that also has LeBron James on the roster. James has been the focal point of every team he has been on throughout his legendary career, but he is more of a second option on this season’s Lakers, given Dončić’s individual brilliance and his own status as someone who turns 41 this month.
Dončić figures to be the face of the Lakers moving into the future, and he is playing at an incredibly high level in his first full season with the team that acquired him via trade from the Mavericks in 2024-25.
That he sees room for improvement should also be a worrisome sign for the rest of the league.
