Neither Luka Doncic nor Austin Reaves is close to returning to action for the Lakers, according to head coach JJ Redick, who told reporters on Tuesday not to expect a formal update on either player before Game 1 of the team’s first-round series on Saturday.
“They’re out indefinitely,” Redick said of his injured guards (Twitter video link via ESPN’s Dave McMenamin). “I’m not going to have an update for you this week. They’re out indefinitely.”
The news doesn’t come as a real surprise. Doncic suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain on April 2, while Reaves sustained a Grade 2 oblique strain in the same game, and both injuries typically require a recovery period of at least four weeks or so.
Given the fact that the Lakers’ first-round series may already be over by that four-week mark, both players are doing their best to make it back as quickly as possible, and news that Doncic will return stateside later this week after undergoing treatment in Spain for his injury generated some buzz. But it was never realistic to expect him or Reaves to be available for the start of the playoffs.
Without Doncic or Reaves, the Lakers have leaned more heavily on LeBron James and Luke Kennard for ball-handling and play-making. James averaged 11.0 assists per game in his last four outings of the season, while Kennard averaged 6.4 APG in five appearances after Doncic and Reaves went down.
Marcus Smart, who returned on Friday following a nine-game absence due to a right ankle injury, also figures to play a key role in Los Angeles’ backcourt in the first round against Houston.
Definitely not the outcome the nba had in mind when they traded him to LA last year
ss, I’m not gonna go heavily one way or the other (cuz none of us definitively know for sure), but I’ll slightly lean on the side of it indeed being suspicious events that transpired leading up to the Doncic/AD trade and all the way up to Dallas winning the top pick that turned into Flagg becoming a Maverick. It’s been contemplated and debated: Why do you NOT make ‘Luka-on-the-block’ public so that you then get to choose from a BOATLOAD of trade proposals? As good as AD was before his latest string of injuries, it’s hard to believe that a GM and owner would be so tunnel-visioned and dislike their superstar cash cow THAT MUCH to conduct business as such. I’m still skeptical of Harrison being this incompetent.
It’d also be interesting to see a list of, say, the last 15-20 star-level to super-level players traded (mid season or offseason) and how many of them were sent to an in-conference team versus those sent to an out-of-conference team. Would be really cool if someone could pull that up.
2019: AD from NOP to LAL (but we all remember Klutch Sports’ questionable role in getting him moved, testing the limits of ethical/legal business practices during the ‘18-‘19 season).
^ I support all of this logic. The Warriors would have offered 5 firsts for Luka. He is legitimately, real-world top 5 no matter what anyone thinks. He IS “The Franchise”. If you aren’t already a 55+ win team and don’t want to mess with the top, that’s fine, but literally every other team would and should trade their future for Luka. To only get what they got for him is tantamount to trading age 25 Michael Jordan for age 31 Chris Mullin aka completely insane.
All that hard work piggy backing the Fakers this season and pulling strings behind the scenes prior undone in one night. SMH.
Moving on to the ping pong balls. That could be interesting.
They done.
Honestly they were not gonna beat Den, SA or OKC even if completely healthy.
Now build a roster around Doncic.
They could’ve beaten Denver if fully healthy imo. As for okc and the spurs, I agree that they would lose to them
Lakers goal is to split in LA and split in Houston. Buy as much time as possible
Lakers definitely where never a threat to win the west but when they lose in four or five several will be disingenuous to confirm their priors like they where really a play in caliber team even when healthy which of course they are not
This Lakers roster is so absurdly lopsided this year, look at the VORPs, the falloff from their big 3…2 of whom are out for 2 months right now..big yikes, vs Playoffs KD (also, KD has had a really good year at age 37, he’s playing better than he has in a while.) I do not like “Washed Lebron putting a roster of mid on his back”s chances:
link to basketball-reference.com::26
This is also a massive W for Luka is MVP argument.
Look at the Thunder VORPs, Shai has all the help in the world, he isn’t even really that “valuable” because this is a #1 seed without Shai, replace him with Podz and they still are #1. Lu Dort maybe the most overrated player in the NBA but the rest of the roster is nasty:
link to basketball-reference.com::26
No Doncic or Reaves, its ok they still got Bronny!!
Freak the Lakers …. Bye