Lakers’ Luka Doncic admits he would have played golf if he didn’t become an NBA player

Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic revealed what he would have done with his life if he weren’t an NBA player.

There has been a rising trend in the last 40 years where top NBA players also become huge fans of the sport of golf.

LeBron James and Steph Curry are the two most famous NBA players, and both are active golfers, but it seems the love for the sport is spreading league-wide, especially in LeBron’s former home of the Lakers.

Doncic was a prodigious basketball talent and has been known worldwide since he was a teenager. He’s spent his entire life perfecting basketball and is in the NBA as a result.

The Lakers social media team asked Doncic what he would have done if he wasn’t in the NBA, and the Slovenian star made it clear that he would be golfing.

Golfing is a recent interest of Doncic’s, something he reportedly picked up after joining the Lakers in 2025.

It seems to be becoming a stronger interest, especially with one of his closest friends and teammates, Austin Reaves, being a huge golfer himself.

Doncic admitted in the same interview that golf is the one sport he would definitely lose to Reaves in, but he also broke the one-word answer rule by adding a ‘for now’ to make it clear he’s still improving.

Doncic appeared on JJ Redick’s podcast in 2024 and said that he had only swung a golf club two times in his entire life, with both those times being recorded instances.

His first swing came as a rookie in Dallas at Topgolf with former world No. 1 golfer Jordan Spieth, who was not impressed by the then 19-year-old. His second swing came at a golf simulator at Pebble Beach.

After joining the Lakers in February 2025, a video of Doncic practicing his in-progress golf swing circulated. At the end of the year, Doncic said in an interview that he wasn’t playing against Reaves recreationally because he ‘cannot golf.’

February 2026 was the big switch, with coach Redick, another avid golfer, revealing that Doncic decided he wanted to be a golfer.

Multiple members of the Lakers, players and coaches, played recreational games regularly against each other during their best run of form of the season from February to March.

Doncic became fully hooked in the 2026 offseason, calling the sport ‘something most beautiful,’ sharing his love for the sport and 36-hole games, which can take up to eight hours.

Doncic played golf with all his teammates when they visited him in Slovenia last month, and it seems this hobby is now turning into a passion for the 27-year-old superstar.

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