Lakers guard Luka Doncic has been diagnosed with a Grade 2 left hamstring strain after undergoing an MRI, the team announced on Friday (Twitter link via Khobi Price of The California Post).
While the Lakers formally ruled Doncic out for the rest of the regular season, they didn’t give any indication how much time he might miss beyond that. The average return timetable for a Grade 2 hamstring strain is 35 days, tweets Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes.com.
If Doncic, who leads the NBA in points per game, is out over a month, he could miss the entire first round of the playoffs. The full postseason schedule has yet to be released, but the first round begins on April 18.
Los Angeles clinched a playoff spot earlier this week and is currently the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference. The Lakers will have to lean heavily on Austin Reaves and LeBron James for scoring and play-making as they look to advance in the postseason.
Doncic appeared to tweak his hamstring with about a minute left in the second quarter of Thursday’s game in Oklahoma City, then pulled up lame on a drive in the third quarter. The Lakers were down 38 points at the time and wound up losing by 43.
Although it’s obviously of lesser importance compared to the Lakers being without their best player, there’s an “extraordinary circumstances challenge” in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that could still allow Doncic to qualify for major postseason awards, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. The superstar guard would have to file an application and have it approved by an “independent expert,” but he appears to have a strong case based on the CBA language, Marks notes (via Twitter).
Doncic is currently at 64 appearances and needed to play one more contest to meet the 65-game requirement. However, he missed two games to travel to Slovenia for the birth of his child, and certainly seems to meet the all criteria listed in the CBA:
- It was impracticable for the player to play in one or more of the game(s) he missed due to extraordinary circumstances.
- The player would have played in at least 65 regular season games if he had played every game that he missed due to the extraordinary circumstances.
- As a result of the extraordinary circumstances, and taking into account the totality of the circumstances (including whether the player did not play in other regular season games in which he could have played), it would be unjust to exclude the player from award eligibility.
Doncic would have a 24-hour window in which to apply for the challenge, starting at 12:00 pm ET on the final day of the regular season (April 12). His agent Billy Duffy confirmed to Shams Charania of ESPN that his client plans to fill out the application (Twitter link).
If he is granted eligibility by the arbitrator, Doncic is a top contender to make his fifth first-team All-NBA appearance in six years. He averaged 33.5 points, 8.3 assists, 7.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 35.8 minutes per game, with a shooting line of .476/.366/.780.
Uh oh!!!
Luka will always disappoint. Yes he can score as well as anyone who’s ever played the sport, especially against teams that can’t match up with him physically (which is most teams but not all). But he’s not a winning player. Gets hurt all the time, and that’s gonna get gradually worse as he gets closer to his 30’s and remains only marginally in shape. Plays zero defense, which limits how teams get built around him and makes it impossible to play with other offense first stars. It’s just really really hard, and I don’t see how that changes.
Should have pulled him out of the game when he first started grabbing at his hammy instead of waiting till the third quarter…. Especially being down by so much
Should have pulled him out of the game when he first started grabbing at his hammy instead of waiting till the third quarter…. Especially being down by so much!
Now he has an excuse for when him and LeBron choke again.
100% on Redick and completely inexcusable. How stupid do you have to be to keep your star player, who has a growing history of lower-body injuries, in the game despite being down 40 at a half and still with a one-game lead over the Nuggets for the #3 seed only two weeks before the start of the playoffs? I’m sure some Redick lovers or defensive types will make excuses for said decision but this is way worse than, say, Thibs leaving his starters in down big with a few minutes left to go.
Hard to dispute, sheagoodbye. Never a recipe for success relying so heavily on one player. I’d like to see a stat about player usage rates and amount of time (compared to the maximum allotted time) superstar players have the ball in their hands. This isn’t the first time in the LeBron-Laker era it’s felt like their version of the playoffs (and some of their delusional fans’ interpretation of it) has come a month or two before the ACTUAL playoffs began. Dunno what else to type about this……other than, sucks to have happened, Luka….get healthy….and LeBron: time to get back in the lab, buddy. LABron Shames.
Same thing I thought your best player having problem and your down 30 in a game take him out. A regular season game doesn’t matter so close to the playoffs.