Luka Doncic gets emotional with heartfelt message to his daughters ahead of Lakers return as NBA star shares a personal family moment with fans

Luka Doncic left basketball out of his newest Instagram post and wrote to his two daughters instead. He shared it on Sunday, after spending a big part of the offseason in Slovenia and getting back to Los Angeles.The note was short and carried no news about the team. Even so, the calendar gives it weight. Lakers media day is Sept. 28, and training camps around the league open the next day. The Slovenian picked his family as the audience before any of that began, and he kept the words plain.Luka Doncic shares heartfelt message to his daughters ahead of Lakers returnThe Sept. 20 post was written in Slovenian. Translated into English, its main line reads: “Wherever I go, you are always with me. I love you!”G+O, the daughters' initials, sits at the top of the caption. Doncic also told them that being apart will not change where they stand in his life. Two heart emojis wrap it up. Nothing in it points to the season or his workouts. It reads like a dad checking in, and little else.His daughters were already part of his summer plans. As Reuters reported in May, he chose to skip Slovenia's national-team duty to have more time with them. The 2025-26 season had ended without him on the floor for the playoffs, since a left hamstring injury sidelined him.The Lakers star also used Ljubljana as a small training base. In August, he brought teammates together there for bonding and a pair of casual practices. September brought his own conditioning and court work in the same city. The August meetups gave the group a head start on familiarity before the official preseason.Coach JJ Redick will soon start testing how the roster works around Doncic, and the rotation will take shape from there.Luka Doncic shares honest take on his growth on and off the courtDoncic enters this season as the lone headliner in Los Angeles, with LeBron James gone. In an interview with SLAM, he talked about how he has changed. His answer was modest, “probably a better basketball player, more mature.” The way he plays, smile included, is much the same, he added.Madrid is where his pro career started. From there he moved to the NBA and was ranked among its best in short order. Going pro early was not easy, yet he credits it with pushing him to mature faster than most players.Dallas is part of the growth story as well. Boston beat the Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals, and Doncic was the one leading Dallas there. Doubts about his leadership, and about whether he could win a title, followed.Los Angeles has already seen the fun side. In one full season with the Lakers, fans and teammates noticed his lively personality, the way he needles opponents and hunts for any competitive edge.Get the latest Sports News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.