Luka Doncic is soaring, Lakers are No. 1 in West. His brilliance is leaving mark

Lakers coach JJ Redick was stumped. He had recently likened Luka Dončić to a supernova.He said you have to pick your poison against him. So, when asked if he had any superlatives to offer following Dončić’s 53-point, five-rebound, five-assist performance in the Lakers’ 124-118 win over the Trail Blazers on Friday, Redick stumbled.“Sure,” Redick said.

“Sure.”When a reporter started asking another question, he interjected. “I’m going to just sit around, we’ll gather one day and come up with more superlatives,” Redick added.“So I’ll have more words ready.

But for now, I don’t have any words.”The hyper-prepared Lakers coach was finally ill-prepared for an assignment.Redick isn’t the only person who has been left dumbfounded following Dončić’s blazing start to the season in which he’s averaging a league-leading 40.1 points, 7.7 rebounds and 7.6 assists.In Friday’s game, Dončić passed Michael Jordan (347) for the most points scored in the first nine games of a season since the NBA-ABA merger with 361 points. It’s the most points anyone has scored in the modern NBA since Wilt Chamberlain in 1962-63.“I’m having a lot of fun,” Dončić said.“Obviously playing basketball, it’s a lot of fun for me.

It’s more [fun] when you play like this and when you win games.So, it’s been like this my whole life.

Basketball was my dream.Playing in the NBA was my dream.

Just living my dream.”The Lakers are living theirs, too.The 27-year-old face of their franchise is having an MVP-caliber campaign while leading the Lakers to the No.1 seed in the Western Conference with an 8-2 record.No one expected the Lakers to be this good.And no one expected Dončić to soar to the top of the MVP conversation after he hadn’t finished in the top two in voting ever in his career.But if the first few weeks of the season have made anything clear, it’s that Redick needs to beef up his vocabulary.

He needs to get a thesaurus.Dončić i...