Los Angeles Lakers are being touted as one of the favourites for the Western Conference playoffs after their historic Luka Doncic trade this week. The LeBron James lead side has bounced back strongly after a challenging outing in the first half of the season.

Doncic, who had dragged an otherwise unremarkable Mavericks team through the Western Conference, became the face of their failure. Dallas coach Jason Kidd was forced to come out and defend his maligned star, even though without Doncic, the Mavericks were a faded Kyrie Irving and a bunch of role players.