NBA Rumors: There are already signs that point to the Los Angeles Lakers handing over the franchise to Luka Doncic.
If there was any debate about whether the Los Angeles Lakers were Luka Doncic's team or if it was LeBron James', all of that noise has been effectively put to bed. As soon as the Lakers acquired Luka from the Dallas Mavericks in one of the most surprising blockbuster trades in league history, it became apparent that he was the new face of the franchise.
Even since the big move, there have been other signs to also suggest that. The biggest of which revolves around the fact that the Lakers sought Luka's feedback before ultimately pulling the trigger on the Mark Williams trade (which has now been rescinded). It's as if the trade never happened, but the fact that the Lakers asked Luka before making the decision to move forward with the original trade tells us all we need to know about whose hands this franchise is in - especially if you believe the whispers that LeBron didn't have knowledge of the Anthony Davis for Luka swap before it took place.
The Luka Doncic era for the Lakers is about to begin
I don't believe this means the Lakers are ready to move on from LeBron but it does tell us that from here on out, every decision that Los Angeles makes is probably going to be with Luka in mind and not LeBron. That's a huge shift from how things have gone in Los Angeles for the past six-plus years.
As Luka prepares to make his debut for the Lakers, it's pretty safe to assume that a new era is about to begin for the franchise. It's not an era that is going to be absent LeBron but, instead, an era that is going to be led by Luka. LeBron is still very much going to be a big part of the Lakers for now (unless something drastically changes between now and the offseason), but Luka is going to be the new face of the franchise.
It will be interesting to see how the next steps for the team play out. That means heading into the offseason, the Lakers will shift from a mostly LeBron-centric build to a Luka one. While the two players do have a lot of similarities in their game, Luka is at his peak where LeBron is very much on the backend of his career.
Probably for the first time in his career, LeBron is on a team that he's not the "face" of. It's certainly an interesting aspect of where the Lakers currently stand as they prepare for one legendary superstar to hand over the torch to another.