After entering the 2025 NBA Playoffs as a favorite to come out of the Western Conference, Luka Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers are on the brink of elimination after a 116-113 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday afternoon. This was the last thing that Lakers fans expected after the team secured the No. 3 seed at the end of the regular season due to the dominant play of their new big three of LeBron James, Austin Reaves, and Doncic, and now they have their backs against the wall ahead of Wednesday's Game 5.
The Lakers now trail 3-1 in the series, and despite Doncic continuing his offensive excellence in nearly every game this series (outside of Game 3 when he was extremely ill), Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves have just been too much to handle. Minnesota's depth and size have helped lead them to some gutsy wins over the first four games of the series, and they were barely able to secure the win in Game 4.
On Sunday, JJ Redick made a rotation decision that has never been done in NBA history when he didn't make a single substitution in the second half. Redick trotted out Doncic, Reaves, Dorian Finney-Smith, James, and Rui Hachimura for all 24 minutes. This forced Doncic and the other five players to be in a position in which Redick didn't trust anyone off their bench, and this is something that wouldn't have happened if Nico Harrison had never traded Doncic.
This would have never happened to Luka Doncic in Dallas
While depth was an issue in Dallas for the early stages of Doncic's career, they had finally built a deep team around him for the first time over the last two years. Harrison's trades for Kyrie Irving, P.J. Washington, and Daniel Gafford helped push the Mavs into a great spot to contend for a title, and they got even better over last offseason. Harrison had built the perfect team to return to the NBA Finals this season, but threw it away.
Dallas added Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Quentin Grimes to a core that was already loaded as they made the NBA Finals the season before, and Doncic and the Mavericks were thriving whenever they were fully healthy. Jason Kidd would have never forced Doncic and another four players to play an entire half without rest, and the Mavericks' bench depth (before the Doncic trade) was much better than Los Angeles'.
If Doncic and the Mavs were hypothetically in a series against the Timberwolves right now and everyone was healthy and they hadn't made any moves at the trade deadline, Kidd would have been able to utilize players like Dante Exum, Dinwiddie, Grimes, Daniel Gafford, Jaden Hardy, Marshall, and Maxi Kleber off the bench. Dallas would have never been in a spot in which their head coach didn't have enough trust in his bench to force five guys to play for an entire half, and Doncic wouldn't be getting attacked by his own fan base as much. Kidd also already found the recipe to defeat the Timberwolves last season, and it would have likely been more of the same this time around.
While certain Mavericks fans weren't afraid to let criticism fly about Doncic when needed, many Lakers fans have turned on Doncic over the last few games, pointing to his defense and stamina as reasons that the Lakers were losing to Minnesota, completely ignoring the fact that he was ill for Game 3 and his offense is what is keeping Los Angeles in these games to begin with. The Lakers' depth has not been blamed enough when analyzing this series, and Doncic's chances of contending for a title in Dallas would have been much higher.
Doncic is catching strays left and right from Lakers faithful as their team is down 3-1 in this series, as they are looking for anything to blame for their team trailing to the No. 6-seeded Timberwolves. This is not something that Doncic deserves (even though he did make some mistakes down the stretch), and rather than immediately blaming the superstar, fans should understand that winning in the playoffs comes down to more than just one player, and depth has become extremely undervalued.
