{"id":1864596,"date":"2026-04-03T22:07:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1864596"},"modified":"2026-04-03T22:07:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:07:37","slug":"luka-doncic-to-miss-rest-of-regular-season-with-hamstring-injury-lakers-announce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1864596","title":{"rendered":"Luka Don\u010di\u0107 to miss rest of regular season with hamstring injury, Lakers announce"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DALLAS \u2014 The Los Angeles Lakers will not have Luka Don\u010di\u0107 for the remainder of the regular season, and almost certainly won\u2019t have their star guard available to them whenever they begin the NBA Playoffs.<\/p>\n

An MRI revealed Don\u010di\u0107 suffered a Grade 2 left hamstring strain, the Lakers announced Friday while only revealing he will not play the rest of the regular season. The Lakers have only five games remaining on their schedule and could begin their first-round playoff series six days after that \u2014 a little more than two weeks after Don\u010di\u0107 suffered the injury in Thursday\u2019s blowout loss to the Thunder.<\/p>\n

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The injury severely punctures whatever hopes the Lakers had for their postseason. Don\u010di\u0107 and the Lakers were in the midst of a surge in the West standings, having risen to third place on the back of a 15-2 March. Don\u010di\u0107 earned Western Conference Player of the Month honors while making a late push for his first MVP award.<\/p>\n

The Lakers\u2019 50-win season was built around Don\u010di\u0107, the league\u2019s leader in both scoring and usage rate. Don\u010di\u0107 is averaging a league-leading 33.5 points in 64 games this season, along with 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists per contest.<\/p>\n

The Lakers are 7-6 without Don\u010di\u0107 this season. Their best wins in that stretch came on the road against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Toronto Raptors when Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura, respectively, hit game-winning shots at the buzzer.<\/p>\n

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Reaves and LeBron James will likely be asked to take on expanded offensive roles in Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s absence. The Lakers play the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday before hosting the Thunder on Tuesday. The Lakers also have a game at the Golden State Warriors and home games against the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz before the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n

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Entering Friday\u2019s action, the Lakers have a one game lead on the Denver Nuggets for the No. 3 seed in the West while controlling the tiebreak scenarios with the Nuggets, Houston Rockets and Timberwolves. The Lakers are 2.5 games ahead of Houston, the current No. 5 seed in the West.<\/p>\n

While Don\u010di\u0107 will end up one game short of eligibility for postseason awards such as MVP and all-NBA, he plans to appeal under the NBA\u2019s \u201cExtraordinary Circumstances Challenge\u201d because two of his missed games occurred when he returned to Slovenia for his second daughter\u2019s birth, agent Bill Duffy said in a statement to The Athletic and other media outlets. That provision could allow him to regain eligibility if the league determines \u201cit was impracticable for him to play in one or more of the Regular Season game(s) that he missed during such Season.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cLuka has gone to great lengths to show up for his team and this league this season. His record-breaking season deserves to be noted in the history books, despite last night\u2019s unfortunate injury and other extraordinary circumstances,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cWe look forward to working with the NBAPA and the league office to ensure a fair outcome in this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The injury ends Don\u010di\u0107 first full regular season with the Lakers. After a stunning trade to the organization in 2025, Don\u010di\u0107 entered training camp with a remade body, having lost significant weight while adding muscle.<\/p>\n

Don\u010di\u0107 scored 43 and 49 points in the Lakers\u2019 first two games before missing three games with a finger injury. He returned and added a 44-point game in his third appearance of the season. He finished his season having scored 40 or more points in 16 of his 64 games. His season high came on the second night of a back-to-back in Miami when he scored 60 points against the Heat.<\/p>\n

He was building momentum to be considered for his first MVP award before Thursday\u2019s game in Oklahoma City. After a disastrous start for Don\u010di\u0107 and his team, the Lakers guard was seen grabbing at his left hamstring late in the first half. He received treatment on the leg and halftime and cleared to return to action.<\/p>\n

A little more than four minutes into the second half, Don\u010di\u0107 drove on Oklahoma City\u2019s Jalen Williams, planting his left leg and immediately dropping the basketball as he reached for his hamstring.<\/p>\n

Soon after, he fell to the ground and covered his face in frustration. He did the same with his jersey as he limped off the court and into the Lakers locker room. The Lakers trailed by 32 points at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, at this juncture of the season, it\u2019s the last thing you want to see,\u201d James said after the game.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Athletic\u2019s Sam Amick and Law Murray contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DALLAS \u2014 The Los Angeles Lakers will not have Luka Don\u010di\u0107 for the remainder of the regular season, and almost certainly won\u2019t have their star guard available to them whenever they begin the NBA Playoffs. An MRI revealed Don\u010di\u0107 suffered a Grade 2 left hamstring strain, the Lakers announced Friday while only revealing he will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1864596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1864596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1864596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1864596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1864596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}