The Los Angeles Lakers head into the 2025-26 campaign with a pair of all-time NBA greats on their roster: LeBron James and Luka Dončić.

It’s an unbelievable luxury to have—and also something they can’t count on having longer than just this season. Because as much as February’s megadeal for Dončić lengthened the long-term runway for this franchise, it still isn’t promised more than this one season with the superstar combo intact.

While James hasn’t committed to his 23rd NBA season being his final go-round, he did admit at media day that the end of his legendary career is coming “sooner than later.” And for those hoping he might extend things a bit to suit up alongside his younger son Bryce, a freshman at Arizona, James just torpedoed that dream.

“I am not waiting on Bryce,” James told reporters. “I don’t know what is own timeline is. I got my timeline, and I don’t know if they quite match up.”

While James only knows how much he has left in the tank, the Lakers can’t afford to think about their relationship extending beyond the upcoming campaign. That is, after all, the last season left on his contract, so this could certainly be their proverbial last dance.

To some, that might mean the Purple and Gold’s priorities should be shaped around Dončić and Dončić alone. In roster-management terms, it’s clear the Lakers’ clock is much more firmly affixed around the 26-year-old superstar who added three years to his own deal this summer than it is the 40-year-old who’s on an expiring deal.

This doesn’t have to be a Luka or LeBron debate, though. Both are clearly capable of contributing to a championship run together. And that, more than anything, should dictate how this front office operates going forward.

With Anthony Davis as his co-star, James steered the Lakers to a title run in 2020 and brought them back to the Western Conference finals in 2023. Dončić, with the help of James’ former running mate, Kyrie Irving, led the Dallas Mavericks to the 2024 NBA Finals.

In other words, their win-now windows are concurrently open. The Lakers can’t afford to underestimate what that means about the possibilities for this season.

To an extent, they haven’t. They acted aggressively and assertively to fill holes in free agency, plugging the center void with former top pick Deandre Ayton and addressing their need for a stopper with former Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart. They also moved quickly to replace Dorian Finney-Smith with Jake LaRavia, ensuring they’ll still have a versatile player with a reliable three-point shot in that spot.

At the same time, this wasn’t an all-in push for the best possible roster. They didn’t trade away future draft picks for established talent. And they didn’t seem to dangle Austin Reaves for a player who better complements their stars, someone who’d bring more defensive resistance and less ball-dominance (and who may not cost a fortune next summer the way it appears Reaves might).

In other words, there are more moves they can make, presuming they think the present upgrade would be worth the future cost. So far, their calculations don’t seem to compute that way, but it might be time to rerun the numbers.

James has, miraculously, shown very few obvious signs of aging. He may not be the best player on the planet anymore, but he’s still a top-10 player who can be the best on the floor any given night.

Dončić holds an even higher ranking around the Association, and that’s without knowing the full impact of his offseason commitment to conditioning. This isn’t merely a twosome with a chance to be basketball’s best, it’s probably the odds-on favorite to hold that title.

L.A. can’t take this for granted. Forget about finding another James, the Lakers could take years to find Dončić a co-star of this quality—or maybe they never do.

If L.A. stops short of putting its full resources into strengthening this roster and then falls short due to flaws in its supporting cast, that could lead to a lifetime of regret among the top decision-makers.

This might functionally be the Lakers’ only chance to make a full-on championship push behind the James-Dončić duo. They better operate with every bit of the urgency that this situation demands.