KATOWICE, Poland — It was midmorning, and one of the best basketball players in the world was in the middle of leading his tiny country deeper into the European basketball championships. Twenty-seven floors above the hotel lobby, Luka Doncic walked to the table near the floor-length windows, plopped down on a chair and, within minutes, was sipping on a double espresso.

This is what a controlled fresh start looks like — the morning beginning the way he and his team wanted, with a hot coffee and a great view as the first chapters of a day that would end with Doncic’s scoring 26 points for Slovenia against a pesky but mostly helpless Icelandic national team.

The days this summer, first in Poland and later in Latvia, were a preview of what is to come for Doncic, a player returning to peak form after an injury and a shocking trade combined to knock him off track in the most severe way he had experienced in his professional career.

Now, back in Los Angeles to begin training camp with the Lakers on Monday, Doncic has fully turned the page on a season that changed his life forever.

“This,” Doncic told The Athletic, “feels like a start for me.”

A Fresh Start and Optimism About Lakers’ Prospects

It is unquestionably the Lakers’ good fortune that they are getting Doncic, 26, at this moment. The five-time first-team All-NBA megastar reinvented himself physically at the start of the summer before looking like the most dominant player in Europe.

Lakers management, including team governor Jeanie Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka flew to Poland to witness the reboot firsthand.

“He just looked comfortable,” Buss told The Athletic. “His focus was on basketball instead of something else being in the back of mind. He’s less burdened; he’s got clarity.”

She added: “He knows where he wants to be. He knows where he is now.”

Doncic is committed to the Lakers, fresh off a three-year extension signed on the first day the Lakers could offer it to him. He has the third-best odds to win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award, behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic. He has the marketing power of Jordan Brand, the global brand recognition of the Lakers and on-court charisma to spare — a face so suited to lead a franchise that he instantly displaced 40-year-old LeBron James as the organization’s guiding star.

“He’s sort of like an illusionist,” Pelinka said in Poland. “He does things on the court that you can’t fully understand unless you’re live at the game.”

The fresh start is reason for optimism, the timing perfectly lined up for Doncic to take his stardom to an even higher level for basketball’s biggest show.

“Big stages are, you know, made for, I say, people with big character,” Doncic said.

Reflecting on Luka’s Trial Run in LA

But unlike most beginnings, this one got a trial run. Joining the Lakers in February gave Doncic a sense of what life in Los Angeles would be like. After the Dallas Mavericks traded him but before he made his debut for his new team, the Lakers had him come to midcourt to be introduced to fans like a European soccer player seeing his new club’s supporters. His first actual game in Los Angeles was a major event, with No. 77 golden Lakers shirts sitting on every seat in the building (and on James’ back during pregame warm-ups).

The trade that sent him to Los Angeles, though, left bruises. He carried extra weight from a calf injury that had shut him down for more than a month. His opening news conference with the Lakers was more notable for how shocked he still looked than for anything he actually said.

As he took the court for his new team, Doncic was able to sprinkle in some Luka Magic — look-ahead passes to James, behind-the-back feeds to Austin Reaves, lobs to Jaxson Hayes, a “how-did-he-do-that” dime to Gabe Vincent and more than a handful of stepback 3s on the left wing.

After he joined the team, the Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets twice and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks once. But the Lakers’ lifeless postseason — their offense cracked 100 points just twice in five games against Minnesota — made contention feel as if it was far away.

“That’s how we could play,” Doncic said of the highs. “But I don’t think we played like this in the playoffs.”

A Physical and Mental Transformation

The physical changes after the season were obvious — a transformation of his body landed him on the cover of Men’s Health magazine and an improved burst to the basket (and even on the defensive end) put him on the EuroBasket All-Star team, even though Slovenia lost in the quarterfinals. The mental changes were more subtle.

Edo Muric, Doncic’s Slovenian teammate and close friend, says the NBA star has emerged as a stronger leader. In the NBA context, that meant Doncic taking on a more pronounced role in recruiting free agents like Deandre Ayton and Marcus Smart. With the national team, it meant adjusting standards for a roster that could not match his talent.

“Every year, he’s more vocal and even more patient with the players because he’s coming from a different level than we are,” Muric said. “And sometimes, it’s not acceptable for him. Maybe he used to expect too much from us because he comes from another world that we come from, you know?

“But now as he’s maturing as he’s older, he gets that. And he’s giving us more and more trust.”

Doncic acknowledged that at this stage of his career, for his teams to be as good as possible, he needed to speak up.

“I mean, it was probably just something I need to do, especially since I’ve seen a lot of basketball now,” Doncic said. “So I’ve been through a lot — so it was kind of something like, I need to do this to help, to help others.”

New mindset, new body, new appreciation for his new team — it all seems to have lined up for Doncic as he walks into this opportunity, a chance to prove his former team wrong, to reinforce the importance of his off-season work and sacrifice and a chance to become an even bigger superstar on the stage the Lakers can give.

“I’m way comfortable,” he said with a grin. “Especially going to training camp, you know, having practice with the guys — like I said, it’s a start for me.

“But I will feel way more comfortable now.”

And that should make plenty of people in the Lakers’ way a little uncomfortable.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Dan Woike / The Athletic/Cooper Neill

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