Ex-Lakers owner Jeanie Buss tells heartbreaking Luka Doncic story involving Kobe, Gigi Bryant right before they died

Luka Doncic arrived in Los Angeles under peculiar circumstances. The five-time All-NBA superstar had done pretty much everything that the Dallas Mavericks could have plausibly asked of him (and more), and yet he was still traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in a blindside move last February.

As a result of the unusual situation, former Lakers owner Jeanie Buss welcomed into the organization one of the rare NBA players who wasn’t all too pleased to be donning purple and gold. But Doncic, despite an obvious desire to remain in Dallas, already had a touching connection to the Lakers franchise.

“I had never met Luka,” Buss said on ‘Pretty Tough’ with Maria Sharapova. “He was someone special to me because the last night that I saw Kobe alive was about a month before he passed, he brought his daughter, Gigi, to come see Luka play because Luka was Gigi’s favorite player. So I always had a soft spot in my heart for Luka because of that, and never in a million years thought he would become available, that he could become a Laker.”

After an awkward first few games with LeBron James and Co., Doncic found his groove, as did the team. The Lakers finished the 2024-25 regular season strong and earned the third seed in the Western Conference.

This year, even while dealing with numerous injuries, including to James, Austin Reaves, and Doncic himself, the Lakers earned another top-four seed and have a 3-1 series lead over the Houston Rockets at the moment. Unfortunately, Doncic, the NBA scoring champion, has yet to play in the postseason this year, as he is recovering from a hamstring injury he suffered earlier this month.

The Lakers can close out their first-round series tonight in L.A. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. PT.

The post Ex-Lakers owner Jeanie Buss tells heartbreaking Luka Doncic story involving Kobe, Gigi Bryant right before they died appeared first on ClutchPoints.