Dončić Sets Championship Goal for Lakers Before Opener

Luka Dončić set a championship goal for the Los Angeles Lakers in a full-page letter to fans published before the team’s 2026-27 season opener against the Golden State Warriors on October 21. He pledged that the team would give its full effort, while the season’s results remain to be seen. “Tonight we start our run for a championship,” Dončić wrote in the letter, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times. He also promised that the Lakers would do everything in their power to meet fans’ expectations and give them everything they had every night. The statements express the team’s ambition, not a forecast of its eventual performance. The opener marks the Lakers’ first season without LeBron James in eight years. Dončić, who joined Los Angeles in a February 2025 trade, is entering the season as the franchise’s central star. The Lakers are scheduled to host the Warriors at Crypto.com Arena at 7 p.m. Pacific time. Dončić has previously described the Lakers as capable of competing for a championship. At training camp, he said he believed the team could contend in 2027 and expressed disappointment that a hamstring injury had kept him out of the Lakers’ playoff run the previous season. He...