Lakers hiring former Mavericks award-winning coach, teaming up with Luka Doncic again

Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison has made a lot of mistakes in his tenure, obviously, none bigger then trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in February. One move that went under the radar was dismissing team strength and conditioning coach Jeremy Holsopple.

That move happened after the run to the NBA Finals, and after a year away from the NBA, he's found his way back to Luka Doncic, becoming the new head strength and conditioning coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, per NBA insider Marc Stein.

Holsopple was named the NBA's top strength and conditioning coach in 2021, and Dallas immediately fell off a cliff with its injuries.

The Lakers are hiring Jeremy Holsopple as their new head strength and conditioning coach, @TheSteinLine has learned.

As Dallas’ athletic performance director, Holsopple was named as the NBA's top strength and conditioning coach in March 2021.

More NBA: https://t.co/6DCqjEwAvw
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) August 11, 2025

This is more proof of the Lakers catering toward Luka Doncic for their future, as they should. Holsopple had been in Dallas from 2013 to 2024, a stretch of nearly 11 years, but Nico Harrison felt Holsopple had too much sway in the organization and let him go. That was clearly a mistakes.

In Holsopple's place, Harrison hired Keith Belton, a former NFL fullback who wasn't fully certified to hold the role he held. Learning that toward the end of the season made a lot of sense for all of the injuries that piled up.

Aug 2, 2025; El Segundo, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers Luka Doncic (77) is interviewed Spectrum SportsNet following a press conference announcing the signing of his contract extension at UCLA Health Training Center. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

Nico Harrison's Ego Led to an Injury-Riddled Season

Here are all the players who missed extended time for the Mavericks last season: Luka Doncic (calf strain), Kyrie Irving (torn ACL), Anthony Davis (adductor strain, returned too early from injury), P.J. Washington (multiple sprained ankles), Dereck Lively II (foot stress fracture), Daniel Gafford (sprained MCL), Jaden Hardy (sprained the same ankle four times), Dwight Powell (hip strain), Caleb Martin (hip strain), and Dante Exum (wrist surgery, fractured hand). That's nearly the entire roster.

Some of those were likely unavoidable, but Dereck Lively's was inexcusable. He was initially ruled out with a sprained ankle and was ramping up to play against the Charlotte Hornets two games later. But then they fond the fracture, and he was out for over two months. They almost significantly set back Lively's career, but they found out about it just in time.

Harrison was pressed about this issue in a near end-of-season roundtable about letting people like Holsopple go, to which he responded, "I'm not going to sit here and go back and forth with the guys who we decided to move on from, but we're excited about the team that we have. We feel that the guys that replaced them have done an amazing job. And again, you're coming at me from a negative standpoint, and I look at it from a positive standpoint, the guys that we brought in are better."

That was a lie.

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