The Lakers are one of the biggest global brands in all of sports, with some of the most prominent American and international athletes wearing the purple and gold over the years.

Their current star, Luka Doncic, comes from Slovenia, and Pau Gasol notably came over from Spain before winning two championships with the Lakers. Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal and Magic Johnson, among others, are also very popular across the world.

Gasol, in particular, is getting involved in the NBA’s expansion as an ambassador for the game. NBA commissioner Adam Silver is in the process of putting together a European league and according to Joe Vardon of The Athletic, Gasol is under consideration for a prominent role in that:

Among the 250 people assembled by NBA commissioner Adam Silver and his team at a posh London hotel just steps from the Thames River was Hall of Famer Pau Gasol, whom numerous sources said is under consideration for a top role in Silver’s European venture.

“This is a very unique opportunity,” Gasol told the crowd. “It’s all about learning from each other. It’s all about creating this new venture together. Yes, we’re talking about (the) league, but this goes far beyond. It is about the ecosystem, it’s about the grassroots, it’s about the domestic leagues and it’s about the impact on the children. … There’s so much at stake, and that’s why I think this is so important and so impactful, and why I’m so excited to be a part of it too.”

The Athletic could not reach Gasol, a six-time NBA All-Star and former anchor of the Spanish national team, for further comment on his likely role with the European league. International sources said he is under consideration for a prominent role, but it is too soon to know what NBA Europe’s leadership structure will be — if there will be a single commissioner or multiple executives.

Gasol is the perfect person for this as he played in both Europe and the NBA and has taken his role as an ambassador very seriously in his post-playing career.

The NBA European league is still in the very early stages but things seem to be coming together quickly, especially with Gasol now involved.

Lakers’ Luka Doncic named All-Star starter

The NBA announced the starters for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game, where they will be going to a USA vs. World format for the first time.

Doncic made the cut as the leading vote-getter in the NBA, leading the World team at Intuit Dome in Inglewood next month, which will mark his sixth All-Star appearance.

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This has led the NBA to scramble and figure out how they can maintain the revenue of sports gambling while disincentivizing players to break rules by joining themselves. And while it’s not something they can likely ever do away with entirely, it appears they have found some things to work on.

It was recently reported that the NBA is enacting a handful of new policies to help curb the sports gambling issues from players and coaches, beginning with injury reporting rules related to Billups’ case, via David Purdum of ESPN:

The NBA is attempting to reduce the value of inside information and combat performance manipulation as it reacts to the federal indictments of a current player, a head coach and a former player in gambling cases, according to a memo sent to all teams Friday.

The league is considering potential policy changes to address tanking, increase the frequency of injury reporting and restrict what sportsbooks offer, according to the memo.

The NBA solicited input from teams and reviewed a set of proposed changes with the board of governors before identifying six areas for potential change, according to the memo, which was obtained by ESPN. In addition to tanking, injury reporting and prop bets, the league plans to upgrade its education program on gambling, adopt new measures to protect players, coaches and team personnel from harassment from sports bettors, and enhance its ability to investigate unusual betting activity, the memo states.

The league might also make some bigger changes to curb end-of-season tanking and the gambling issues that come along with it, via Shams Charania of ESPN:

The NBA has begun to gather input from its owners and general managers on new ways to combat tanking in the aftermath of the gambling scandal that rocked the league at the start of the season, sources told ESPN.

At a board of governors meeting Friday, the league presented several ideas around potential modifications to rules regarding draft pick protections, the draft lottery and other possible approaches, according to multiple sources.

In recent years, multiple teams have either shut down players early or sat players for games to try to improve their draft positioning, often tied to a protected pick. Sources said multiple ideas were proposed as a brainstorming measure to combat tanking, including:

• Limiting pick protections to either top four or 14 and higher, which would eliminate the problematic mid-lottery protections.

• No longer allowing a team to draft in the top four two years in a row.

• Locking lottery positions after March 1.

It’s good to see the league finally making important changes like limiting player prop betting. That not only prevents players from cheating, but could also do some work towards helping rampant gambling addiction in the sports world.

It remains to be seen, though, if injury reporting rules and tanking rules will have any impact, as the league has been looking to fix those for years, with no major success.

JJ Redick calls for consistency on NBA officiating

Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick has a tendency to let his emotions show on the sidelines, and he did that against the L.A. Clippers.

The Lakers lost to the Clippers, 103-88, while down three starters, Gabe Vincent and losing Luka Doncic at halftime.

The referees, unfortunately, played a factor in the loss as well.

After the loss, Redick sounded off on the officiating and called for the NBA to address the lack of consistency in calls as he has not been receiving feedback when reaching out to the league.

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There were many that felt Silver should step in and prevent the trade from happening, but he remained firm on the stance that unless there is probable cause for collusion between teams, the league cannot veto a legal trade made between two teams that are not owned by the league.

However, now months removed from that trade, Silver spoke more honestly on his personal thoughts on the situation. His focus was largely on Doncic as a human and how he has responded to the deal, according to Jason Gay of The Wall Street Journal:

“Putting aside the merits of the trade, you could argue that it was a bit of a kick in the ass to Luka,” says Adam Silver, the NBA’s commissioner. “He didn’t try to sugarcoat this trade.”

To be clear: Silver says this admiringly. “Another player could have said, ‘Oh, now I’m part of the Los Angeles Lakers organization,’ ” he continues. “He didn’t try to hide his disappointment, and I think he was in a bit of a funk for a while, because it was probably the first true professional setback of his career. And I was hoping personally for him that he would ultimately see this as an opportunity to reset.”

Luka certainly has taken the negative from the trade and spun it into a positive. He spent the summer getting into arguably the best shape of his career, leading a massive promotional tour, signing an extension with the Lakers and shining at EuroBasket to lead an undermanned Slovenia team to the quarterfinals.

It would not be surprising to see Doncic’s name atop favorites lists to win the 2025-26 MVP award after the way this summer has gone, and it’s all in response to the stunning trade from February that relocated him from Dallas to L.A.

Luka Doncic didn’t know how to react after trade

The Mavericks trading Luka Doncic to the Lakers will forever go down as one of, if not the most, shocking trade in the history of the NBA. Not only did it come as a complete shock to the sports world, but it was also a major surprise to Doncic himself.

Doncic had no desire to be traded from the Mavericks and he has spoken about how he wanted to play his entire career in Dallas. By now, he has accepted and grown to enjoy being in Los Angeles and a member of the Lakers franchise, but initially it was difficult for the 26-year-old.

And the Lakers superstar recently opened up about it, saying he didn’t know how to react to the trade when it happened and didn’t want to disappoint fans of the Mavericks or the Lakers.

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Both things continue to go through changes as the NBA strives to work out the kinks and make them as good as they can possibly be and the league recently released a statement on social media announcing changes for each that will be coming into play:

The following was released by the NBA. pic.twitter.com/Md0uIQXmme

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) September 10, 2025

Since the Emirates NBA Cup has been in existence, both the semifinals and finals have been played on a neutral court in Las Vegas. But that will change starting in the 2026-27 season as the semifinals will now be played on the home court of the higher-seeded team. The championship game will remain in Las Vegas, but the semis will now feature a home-court advantage for whoever was better throughout the tournament.

The change in Coach’s Challenge process will begin this season, however, though it has more to do with a specific process than anything else. Last season, when reviewing out-of-bounds challenges, the league allowed officials to decide whether a proximate foul should have been called on the play. But this often led to extremely long reviews as referees had to determine who the ball was out on, as well as whether there was a foul committed.

But beginning this season, the Replay Center official will be determining whether a foul should be called, instead of the on-court referee at the game. By doing this, the goal is to expedite the review process and shorten review times, getting the game back on the court as quickly as possible after properly reviewing the play.

NBA to change rules so end-of-quarter heaves won’t count against player stats

Another rule change that is set to be implemented this coming season is a statistical one. It is being reported that unsuccessful end-of-quarter heaves will no longer count towards individual stats and will instead be marked as a missed shot for the team.

This was something that the NBA tested out during Summer League and should lead to an increased willingness of players putting up those shots to end quarters as often times they would purposely wait until just after the clock expired in order to not harm their individual field goal percentage.

They didn’t show the National Anthem or starting lineup introductions, and on top of that, there was nothing on the court that signaled it was the NBA Finals.

In the past, there has been a huge Larry O’Brien Trophy at center court and also a decal with the NBA Finals logo somewhere else on the floor. The Los Angeles Lakers notably had these in their battles with the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic, for example. The NBA did away with that in 2014 though in part due to safety reasons with the extra decals potentially creating some slippage.

With the complaints piling up in Game 1, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league will look at it and see if there is a safe way to bring back the trophy and logos, via Sam Amick of The Athletic:

“Maybe there’s a way around it,” he told a small group of reporters during an NBA Cares charity event at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Oklahoma County. “To be honest, I hadn’t thought all that much about it until I (saw) it (on social media). I’m nostalgic, as well, for certain things. And also, I think for a media-driven culture, whether it’s people watching live or seeing those images on social media, it’s nice when you’re looking back on highlights and they stand out because you see that trophy logo or some other indication that it’s a special event. So, we’ll look at it.”

The last two seasons, the league has added the NBA Cup, an in-season tournament that features the semifinals and final game in Las Vegas on a special court that includes logos and decals. But Silver explained why that would be easier to prepare for than the NBA Finals:

“In the case of the Cup, of course, we have the opportunity to plan well in advance and to design a specific neutral court for a Cup championship game,” he said. “And the teams design their own Cup courts. It actually takes a significant amount of time to create new courts in terms of how they’re painted, et cetera.

“One of the reasons we moved away from the logos on the courts is — whether it was perception or reality — there was a sense that maybe the logos added some slipperiness to the court, and it was a change sort of on the court that was coming just at the time of the finals. … Maybe it’s for superstitious reasons or just a sense from teams that we shouldn’t be changing things around such important competition. That’s largely why we stopped putting the logos on the court.”

It seems that Silver and the NBA are putting actual thought in this, which is great for fans. But they must find a safe way to do it if they are going to bring the logos back as the health of the players should not be compromised, especially in the NBA Finals.

Magic Johnson expecting close NBA Finals

Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals was a classic as Tyrese Haliburton hit a game-winner to complete another sensational comeback for the Pacers. Before the series began, Lakers legend Magic Johnson said he was expecting it to be a close one, and so far he has been proven right.

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