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LOS ANGELES — When it comes to great players such as Los Angeles Lakers point guard Luka Dončić, check with the coaches.

The coaches, they always know.

One thinks of Dončić as an offensive savant. Another, who has one of the greatest offensive players of all time on his team, uses Dončić as the ultimate litmus test for his defense. A third coach has nightmares about him.

“You’re asking the wrong guy,” Portland Trail Blazers coach Micah Nori said when asked what’s the best way to prepare to face the Lakers guard. “Gives me PTSD (from) the Western Conference finals when we were in Minnesota.”

Nine seasons into his NBA career, Dončić, the NBA’s leading scorer last season, is off to an even better start this season. He’s averaging 38.5 points per game, which would put him fourth all-time behind some guy named Wilt Chamberlain (who occupies the top three spots) and is eight points better than the two-time MVP in second place this season: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at 30.1 points per game.

Dončić’s overall excellence is fueling the Lakers’ hot 7-2 start. In addition to leading all scorers through nine games, Dončić’s 8.0 assists per game rank fifth, behind only Houston Rockets center Alperen Şengün (8.1), Miami Heat point guard Davion Mitchell (8.3), Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić (9.3), and Washington Wizards point guard Trae Young (9.5).

“It’s a really good offense that we’re playing right now,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick said after his team put up 138 points Monday on a Miami Heat team that had two days of rest while the Lakers played their fifth game in seven days. “A lot of that, of course, is Dončić, and what he’s able to do and bend the defense and his shot-making creates a lot of problems.

“And then, he can make every pass.”

Dončić’s impact is that the Lakers have the NBA’s best offense to start the season. Last season, Jokić led the NBA’s top offense, as the Nuggets clocked in at an astounding 121.2 points per 100 possessions. Through nine games, the Lakers are averaging 121.1 points per 100 possessions. With Dončić on the floor, that figure rises to 130.8 points per 100 possessions. With Dončić off the floor, the Lakers are at a team-low 99.7 points per 100 possessions; the 30th-ranked Charlotte Hornets offense scores 101.5 points per 100 possessions.

All of this despite Dončić averaging a career-worst 5.1 turnovers per game. When the Lakers don’t turn the ball over, they hit teams with the fourth-most free-throw attempts in the league (30.1 per game), the third-best 3-point percentage (38.8) and the league’s highest field goal percentage (51.2).

“I think it’s pretty OK,” Dončić said of his rhythm to start this season. “As long as we’re in the game, I’m fine. But still … I didn’t play for six, seven months. So, I’m just trying to find that rhythm, and it’s getting better.”

Dončić’s impact is reminiscent of another superstar offensive hub: Jokić. Unprompted, Nori compared Dončić to Jokić.

“He basically tests every single fundamental, defensively and scheme,” Nori said of Dončić. “He’s kind of like the Jokić of smalls, if you will, or wings. He always makes the right play, it seems.”

Nori was an assistant coach with the Minnesota Timberwolves when they made the 2024 Western Conference finals against Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks. Dončić was the MVP of that series. Then in 2025, Nori and the Timberwolves upset the Lakers in the conference quarterfinals. But Nori may be more familiar with Jokić, as the Timberwolves faced the Nuggets in three playoff series between 2023 and 2026, winning the last two meetings.

Nuggets coach David Adelman is familiar with having the ultimate offensive weapon. He has coached Jokić, a three-time NBA MVP and the 2023 NBA Finals MVP, for 10 seasons. In Adelman’s first full season as head coach in 2025-26, the Nuggets had the league’s top offense.

So when he had a chance to have his team play its preseason finale against Dončić, Adelman saw an opportunity to face a multifaceted offensive threat to better prepare his defense.

“Luka is a problem, obviously,” Adelman said in October. “He’s the guy.”

Dončić’s similarities to Jokić begin early, as Dončić, like Jokić, puts in a full shift to begin games. New York Knicks guard and 2026 NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson (11.7 first-quarter minutes per game in 2025-26) was the only player last season who averaged more minutes in first quarters than Jokić (11.2) and Dončić (11.1).

Through Nov. 4, Dončić is the only player in the NBA who has played all 12 minutes in the first quarters of his games. (Dončić missed a zero-days-rest road game against the LA Clippers to manage back tightness.)

Like Jokić, Dončić starts games making plays for his teammates. Dončić leads all players in first-quarter assists per game with 3.6; he is the only player who averages more first-quarter assists per game than Jokić (3.4).

The first-quarter scoring is where Dončić separates from Jokić somewhat. In 2024-25, Jokić (10 points) and Dončić (nine) were second and third, respectively, in first-quarter scoring per game; 2025 MVP and finals MVP Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder led the league in that category with 10.1 first-quarter points per game.

Last season, Dončić took his first-quarter scoring up to a league-leading 12 per game, while Jokić dropped to 8.1 (fifth in the NBA). This season, Dončić is averaging an astronomical 14.4 first-quarter points, while Jokić continues to drop down to 7.6 (seventh in NBA).

Toronto Raptors coach Darko Rajaković knows Jokić, a fellow Serbian, well. His team was tasked with dealing with Dončić to end Week 2.

“Different (positions), but kind of like (the) same position: playmakers, both of them,” Rajaković said of Jokić and Dončić. “I think their understanding of the game and the pace that they play at, it’s allowing them to see the game, you know, with different eyes.

“Those two guys, you cannot speed them up.”

Dončić spent the Raptors game, and all of this season, validating the comparison to Jokić. In the first quarter against the Raptors, Dončić created 23 first-quarter points between his own scoring and his three assists. That was as many points as the Raptors had in the first quarter as a team.

Rajaković said part of the challenge of guarding Dončić and Jokić is that they are plus-sized players for their respective positions.

“They can see the full court,” he said. “They can make all of the decisions.”

Jokić is listed at 7 feet and 277 pounds. The average height and weight for a starting center last season was about 6-11 and 250.4 pounds. Dončić’s nominal position is point guard, where the average starter in the NBA last season was about 6-4 and 199.4 pounds. Dončić is listed at 6-8 and 242 pounds; for context, Dončić’s former teammate LeBron James is listed at 6-9 and 250 pounds. The average power forward, Dončić’s frequent defensive assignment, is listed at 6-8 and 226.3 pounds.

The positional size, along with the skill, allows Dončić to finish inside, shoot over close contests and find teammates for open shots at a variety of angles. Whereas Jokić is more likely to use post-ups, Dončić is more likely to operate out of ball screens and isolations.

Dončić is the league’s leading pull-up 3-point scorer, making 3.4 pull-up 3s per game while making 36.4 percent of those attempts. But now, Dončić’s 3-point percentage off the catch is up to 53.8 percent. His teammate from last season, Luke Kennard, now with the Phoenix Suns, makes 52.9 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s this season.

Dončić is down to 6.8 paint points per game, which would be a career-low and a decline from averaging 10.5 paint points last season. But he is still proficient inside the paint, going 10 of 12 in the restricted area (83.3 percent) and 17 of 31 in the non-restricted paint (54.8 percent). He has other players to score paint points now, namely new center Walker Kessler, who Dončić averages a team-high 2.1 of his assists to this season. Kessler is making 83.3 percent of his field goals when set up by Dončić. New addition Matisse Thybulle is making 1.0 3s per game off of Dončić passes alone, making 50 percent of his attempts.

Dončić will be hard-pressed to maintain his percentages. He’s a career 46.9 percent shooter from the field currently, converting 49.5 percent this season. Dončić is a career 35.4 percent shooter from 3, and he is off to a career-high 43.1 percent mark this season. Even from the free-throw line, Dončić is making a career-high 89.3 percent after never breaking 79 percent and coming in at a career average of 75.8 percent.

Like Jokić, fitness is always a theme for Dončić and treated like his hard ceiling. It’s not just conditioning, as Dončić came into the 2025-26 season in improved shape, only to succumb to multiple hamstring injuries. Jokić missed a total of 11 games in his three MVP regular seasons, and he missed 13 games in Denver’s 2023 championship season that saw Jokić finish second to Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid in the MVP voting. Dončić has missed at least 16 games in four of the previous five seasons.

Teams will also see if Dončić’s workload will survive not just a long season, but long games. Dončić outscored the Golden State Warriors 21-15 by himself Friday night in the first quarter. But after starting that game with a 5:1 assist-to-turnover ratio and making 7 of 12 field goals and 5 of 9 3s, Dončić made only 5 of 15 field goals and 1 of 7 3s for 16 points, and he didn’t record an assist while turning over the ball twice in the final three quarters while the Lakers were on the wrong end of a 42-point turnaround in their loss at Golden State. Like Jokić, teams will want to test Dončić defensively as well to see if there’s a tax effect.

“You have to make him work at the defensive end,” Nori said of Dončić. “I’m not saying that you have to exploit him because of his defensive capabilities. But you do have to make him work, because he is a guy that’s gonna play 38 (minutes) plus.

“And hopefully in the fourth quarter when he does get a switch on to him, maybe by making him work at both ends and picking him up, maybe his legs are a little bit gone.”

The next step for Dončić — who has already played in an NBA Finals, won scoring titles, led a top-ranked offense (2020 Mavericks) and has been an MVP finalist (third in 2024) — is to win. He’s at the same age now (28 in February 2027) that Jokić was when he won his NBA championship and finals MVP.

Redick took umbrage over Dončić’s perceived lack of inclusion in MVP talks last spring, where he finished fourth in the voting behind Jokić, Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs and Gilgeous-Alexander. Just don’t expect Redick to get involved in those MVP discussions until February.

“I keep the same rule that I kept when I worked for (the) media,” Redick said in October when the 2026 NBA GM survey listed Wembanyama, Jokić and Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards as most likely to win MVP, while Dončić received zero votes. “I don’t want to talk about MVP until at least 50 games into the season.”

You can mark your calendar for Jan. 30, when the Lakers play their 50th game of the season against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Or you can mark your calendar for the two Lakers-Nuggets games before and after that date to see how Dončić and Jokić compare further.

For now, Dončić has established that he can put up Jokić-like numbers. How far he can take it will be something to watch for the next several months.

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