By Johnny Askounis/ [email protected]
After a teaser about his appearance on Mind the Game presented by Uninterrupted and Wondery, the first part of Luka Doncic sitting down with his Los Angeles Lakers teammate LeBron James and co-host Steve Nash was released on Sunday.
The 26-year-old Slovenian combo guard went from sharing the court with the four-time NBA champion following the blockbuster trade from the Dallas Mavericks midway through the 2024-25 NBA Regular Season to living in Los Angeles and his effort to improve youth sports.
“It’s great,” he talked about playing with LeBron, “I’ve never played with a guy like this. Just being traded to LA, it was different. Just to play with guys like him, like it’s unbelievable.”
“This is the first city I’ve played in that has an ocean. And I really like the ocean. After a couple of days, that was the first thing on my mind,” he added on his early adjustments in Los Angeles.
Nash also revealed a trademark late pass as his favorite skill of Doncic.
“I don’t think I did that as a kid. I don’t remember that,” the native of Ljubljana talked about the specific pass emerging during his NBA career, “I always said to my teammates, ‘Once I go up, stay in your spot, because I know here you were before and if I don’t have any options, I will pass it to you’. I think it developed through time.”
With the Luka Doncic Foundation investing resources in a study for youth basketball in Europe and the United States, Doncic revealed his goal before venturing into his own youth experiences in various sports.
“We’re trying to combine the weaknesses and the strengths,” he went into the path of the study, “The main thing was just kids having fun playing basketball, especially when they are young.”