Luka Doncic certainly made his head coach look bad on Thursday night.
Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers faced off on Thursday against the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena in Denver, Colo. Before the game, Lakers head coach JJ Redick spoke to reporters and was asked about Doncic’s technical foul count (Doncic entered play on Thursday at 14 on the season).
“He’s aware that he’s close [to the suspension threshold],” said Redick of Doncic, per ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “And he’s trying [to not draw more].”
Unfortunately for Redick though, those comments about Doncic ended up aging like week-old milk. In the second quarter of the game against the Nuggets on Thursday (barely two hours after Redick’s media session), Doncic picked up … a technical foul.
After a made three-point basket by Denver star Jamal Murray, Doncic turned and said something to referee Dedric Taylor (No. 21). Taylor immediately hit Doncic with the T, marking the ex-NBA scoring champion’s 15th technical foul of the season.
Luka Doncic was assessed a technical foul here.
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) March 6, 2026
pic.twitter.com/Lz6n0zzCOq
Once Doncic gets to 16 technical fouls on the year, he will get an automatic one-game suspension from the NBA (as well as additional one-game suspensions for every two technical fouls after that). That could be a major problem for a 37-24 Lakers team fighting tooth and nail for playoff seeding at No. 6 in the West, which is perilously close to the play-in tournament zone.
For all of Doncic’s many elite talents, his incessant whining to the referees is perhaps his single most tragic flaw. Just last week, a prominent NBA analyst went viral over his profane rant about Doncic’s constant complaining.
