Season on the brink: State of Luka Dončić’s hamstring holds fate of Lakers’ hopes, NBA honors

There is no good time to lose a player like Luka Dončić, and no good way to lose him. But the way the Los Angeles Lakers lost him Thursday night — in the midst of getting absolutely poleaxed by the defending NBA champion and Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder, to a non-contact soft tissue injury, just over two weeks before the start of the 2026 NBA playoffs — is about as brutal as it gets.

The Lakers’ lifespan this season likely rests on the severity of the left hamstring strain that Dončić suffered, and whether his stretch on the shelf will be closer to two weeks or two months. “There’s a lot on the line,” is how injury expert Jeff Stotts of In Street Clothes put it, and that’s true in multiple directions: for the fate of Dončić’s late-season surge toward the top of the Most Valuable Player race, yes — seriously, it’s like someone wished on a cursed monkey’s paw that voters could see what the Lakers looked like without Luka — but also for L.A.’s chances of winning a playoff series for the first time in three years.

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“At this point, at this juncture of the season, it’s the last thing you want to see,” LeBron James told reporters.

Hindsight is 20/20, and also unhelpful, but watching how Thursday’s game unfolded after the fact, you start to wince in anticipation of what’s coming. Late in the first quarter of what was already a blowout against Oklahoma City, you could see Dončić grimacing as he ran back on defense after a jump stop and layup and after hitting the deck on a drive. Soon after, you could see him reaching for his left hamstring — which he’d strained back in February, costing him four games heading into the All-Star break — after missing a free throw, and again while James shot one.

After a brief rest at the start of the second quarter, he appeared to be moving gingerly, but remained in the game, delivering a pair of assists and drilling a 3 over great defense by Luguentz Dort. Late in the second, though, Dončić drove on Thunder guard Cason Wallace, leaped to throw a cross-court pass to Luke Kennard in the corner, and then once…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/season-on-the-brink-state-of-luka-doncics-hamstring-holds-fate-of-lakers-hopes-nba-honors-194351733.html

Author : Dan Devine

Publish date : 2026-04-03 19:43:00

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