Luka Dončić must feel as though, these past few months, he’s been twirling in a washing machine. He announced a separation from his fiancee in March; reports followed of a prolonged custody battle over their two daughters. As Dončić plays in the NBA and his children live in Slovenia, he doesn’t see them much as is. But after the reports of the rift with his ex emerged, he started playing some of the best basketball of his life: he led the Los Angeles Lakers to a 15-2 record in March, a stretch that included a torrential 60-point display against the Miami Heat. Behind Dončić’s brightening star, the Lakers seemed to be sharpening into a real contender. Then Dončić tweaked his hamstring in April and the illusion shattered. He watched from the sidelines as the Lakers limped out of the playoffs with an inevitable second-round defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Actually, Dončić must feel as if he’s been in turmoil for the past few years. He made his first – and so far only – NBA finals in 2024, leading the Dallas Mavericks there with a barrage of awesome shotmaking. As the best offensive player on the court while playing through multiple injuries, Dončić and his Mavs lost to the far deeper Boston Celtics in five games. As thanks, the Mavericks traded Dončić to the Lakers, citing defensive concerns, when what had really doomed them against the Celtics was that no one aside from Luka – who led his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals in that series – could play at the requisite level to win.

And what to make of Dončić’s Lakers tenure? He and Austin Reaves seem to be platonic soulmates. He’s played with LeBron James, his idol. And yet the team remained built in the afterimage of the LeBron-Anthony Davis Lakers, a far worse fit for Dončić than the Mavs were during his stint in Dallas. With a hard ceiling imposed upon them – not enough shooting, less defense – they’ve yet to make an impactful playoff run during his time in LA.

Now Dončić may get his chance. James is gone, off to the clunky but alarmingly stacked Philadelphia 76ers. In his place the Lakers have, at long last, employed a center not named Deandre Ayton. Walker Kessler may transform the Lakers for the better; he may also need time to develop into what Dončić needs; he most definitely cost a lot of money. This is the first season in Los Angeles that Dončić will get to run the Lakers as truly his own team, which is a mixed blessing. Will the (hopefully) improved synergy be enough to take down, or even meaningfully threaten, the monstrous basketball ecosystems that are Thunder and Spurs? Probably not, in which case many will blame Dončić.

So, is Dončić cursed? Born to be an MVP, but thrust into the same era as Nikola Jokić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Perfect on the Mavs, but helpless in the clumsy, unfeeling hands of owner Miriam Adelson and Nico “Defense wins championships” Harrison. Totally in control of any offense, but constantly furious at and distracted by those pesky outside factors, the referees. A shade too uninterested on defense for anybody to ignore the deficiency. Traded to the Lakers, who took too long to mold themselves around him. Brilliant in the regular season, capable of being a supernova in the playoffs, but too often injured. Early in his Lakers tenure, ready to return to the court after healing from a hamstring injury, the franchise gets new owners.

The clock’s ticking for the 27-year-old, and it’s not even his fault. How is it fair that one of the great pressure performers of his generation is primed for a James Harden-esque legacy? We should know by now to resist the immense gravitational pull of rings; they’re too elusive – and too reliant on the contributions of others – to be the main criteria by which to judge a player in a team sport. But if Dončić retires without an NBA title, it will be held against him. Likewise with his lack of an MVP award, despite the fact that Dončić’s lone crime is being a unicorn slightly smaller than Jokić, and being born too soon before Victor Wembanyama. By the time voter fatigue comes for Wemby, Dončić will be on the wrong side of 30.

Sports are made for narratives, all the more attractive when subjectivity enters the conversation. The prevailing attitude is that there are winners and there are losers, and excepting the most mythmakingly tragic bad luck everybody pretty much deserves what they get. Within that framework each player is buttonholed into a tidy little story, while various factors such as “timing”, “teammates”, and “De’Aaron Fox had a high ankle sprain during the most recent playoffs” are ignored or shunned. You wonder how much Dončić’s story will acknowledge that he didn’t always have agency in his fate, at least not to this point.

The more interesting question is how he feels right now. This is a player with something approaching absolute power on the basketball court who a) doesn’t seem very happy when exercising said power, b) is so bothered by any and all refereeing that his complaints are the pet peeve of half the fanbase, c) has repeatedly found himself in impossible situations through no fault of his own, and d) is dealing with a difficult situation in his life off the court. Lost in the inevitable handwringing about the pressure on Dončić and the potential of him underdelivering on what seemed to be a destined legacy is the feeling that one of the best basketball players alive doesn’t seem very happy. Think of his reaction after the famous game-winner over Rudy Gobert. That’s not self-satisfied or showy trash talk, he’s pissed off. Not to mention what his apparent discontentment says about the sport or the person. Perhaps this season Dončić will be able to conduct the team and the action the way he hopes, but I wonder if he’d trade that possibility for a measure of peace. To hijack a cliche, the best offense is a good defense.