Why Lakers' Luka Doncic Is a 'Positive Instigator'

"Before Dončić's first game as a Laker, the team's star, LeBron James, shared some sage words for the devastated athlete. "Luka, be your f---ing self," James said, in a pre-game huddle. "Don't fit in. Fit the f--- out." And that's exactly what Dončić has done. Months later, in his sophomore season in Los Angeles, his transformation from shaken newcomer to team cornerstone has become the most dramatic storyline in basketball - a hero's journey of a displaced star finding new ground."

"As a journalist, executive coach and former strategic advisor at tech giant Palantir, I have closely watched the star athlete's response to adversity. Like Dončić, born in Slovenia, I am an immigrant, arriving in the U.S. as a graduate student and know the challenge of parachuting as an outsider into a new subculture and rising to the top. I often examine athletes as case studies in leadership, because they reveal the best potential for leaders under pressure."

"Take, for example, another athlete: U.S. Olympic pommel horse champion Stephen Nedoroscik, who made headlines last summer for his unique personality, playing Rubik's Cube during breaks as he brought his team to an Olympic medal. His teammates described him as a "positive instigator." As a leadership coach, the term struck me as the perfect way to describe people who act as catalysts for meaningful transformation, leading me to create a new coaching program called the Positive Instigation Coaching Program."

Luka Dončić was traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers in early February, a move that initially devastated him. LeBron James urged him before his first game to be unapologetically himself: "Don't fit in. Fit the f--- out." Dončić embraced that message and evolved from a shaken newcomer into a Lakers cornerstone by his second season. An immigrant perspective parallels the challenge of entering a new subculture and rising to the top. The concept of a "positive instigator" names leaders who catalyze meaningful transformation and inspired a Positive Instigation Coaching Program to cultivate such leadership.

Read at Psychology Today