{"id":665778,"date":"2026-05-12T10:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T10:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665778\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T10:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T10:12:11","slug":"luka-doncic-says-he-wasnt-close-to-returning-from-injury-before-lakers-season-ended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665778\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic says he wasn&#8217;t close to returning from injury before Lakers&#8217; season ended"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"Los Angeles Lakers' Luka Doncic reacts to an officials call in the second half of Game 2 in a second-round NBA basketball playoffs series against the Oklahoma City Thunder Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Oklahoma City.\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-black mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Lakers&#8217; Luka Doncic reacts to an officials call in the second half of Game 2 in a second-round NBA basketball playoffs series against the Oklahoma City Thunder Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>Nate Billings\/AP<img alt=\"Los Angeles Lakers' Luka Doncic, center, stands on the court in the second half of Game 1 in a second-round NBA basketball playoffs series against the Oklahoma City Thunder Tuesday, May 5, 2026 in Oklahoma City.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-black mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Lakers&#8217; Luka Doncic, center, stands on the court in the second half of Game 1 in a second-round NBA basketball playoffs series against the Oklahoma City Thunder Tuesday, May 5, 2026 in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Phillips\/AP<img alt=\"Los Angeles Lakers' Maxi Kleber, left, and Luka Doncic, right, react to play against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first half of Game 2 in a second-round NBA basketball playoffs series Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Oklahoma City.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-black mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Lakers&#8217; Maxi Kleber, left, and Luka Doncic, right, react to play against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first half of Game 2 in a second-round NBA basketball playoffs series Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>Nate Billings\/AP<\/p>\n<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Luka Doncic says he never got close to being healthy enough to rejoin the Los Angeles Lakers in the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-channels-pixel.ex.co\/events\/0012000001fxZm9AAE?integrationType=DEFAULT&amp;template=design%2Farticle%2Fplatypus_two_column.tpl\" alt=\"\" class=\"x1px y1px vh abs\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Doncic incurred a grade 2 hamstring strain on April 2, and the NBA scoring champ missed the Lakers&#8217; final 15 games, including their entire postseason run. After a shocking first-round series victory over Houston without Doncic, Los Angeles&#8217; season ended Monday night with a 115-110 loss to the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who completed a four-game sweep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know some people wanted me (to come) back, but obviously I wasn\u2019t close to clearing,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cIf I could be out there, I would be, 100%. Everybody in that room knows this is really tough. This is the best time to play basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doncic said he is running and shooting, but he hasn&#8217;t progressed to contact work in practice. The Slovenian superstar will probably need another week or two to reach that stage, which pushes his total recovery time toward the two full months that is often required for a return from that level of hamstring injury.<\/p>\n<p>Doncic acknowledged that the disappointing end overshadowed the many good elements of his first full season with the Lakers. He averaged 33.5 points, 8.3 assists and 7.7 rebounds while playing in 64 games.<\/p>\n<p>Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=timesunion.com\" data-link=\"native\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Add Preferred Source\" class=\"td300 cp f aic jcc disabled:cd wsn px24 y40px px16 py8 buttonSm fs13 xs:fs16 xs:buttonLg bg-primaryAccessible hover:o80 c-white disabled:bg-gray300 disabled:c-gray600 border bn tac br2\"><\/p>\n<p>Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>His partnership with LeBron James and Austin Reaves bloomed down the stretch of the regular season, when the Lakers made a 14-2 run through March before Doncic and Reaves both incurred major injuries in the same game at Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously this season didn\u2019t end how we wanted, but I feel like the last push we made in the end of the regular season, we thought we could compete for a championship,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cI think we had a great team. We had great chemistry. Playing with AR and LeBron, it\u2019s an incredible experience. Two great players, and it was really fun to share a court with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doncic thrived in uniform during a tumultuous year off the court: He separated from his fiancee \u2014 the mother of their two daughters, who still live in Europe. Shortly after the Lakers&#8217; season ended Monday night, Doncic announced on social media that he won&#8217;t play for Slovenia&#8217;s national team this summer because he plans to continue to work toward acquiring joint custody of his daughters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, I want to spend time with my daughters, and that\u2019s probably the only thing that\u2019s on my mind right now,\u201d Doncic said of his immediate summer plans. \u201cSecond of all, obviously get the work in and come back ready for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While James is contemplating his future after his 23rd NBA season and Reaves is likely to be in line for a massive contract extension if he can reach a deal with the Lakers, Doncic made it clear he is locked in on the future with the team that acquired him from the Dallas Mavericks in a seismic trade in February 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Doncic signed a three-year, $165 million contract extension with the Lakers last summer, keeping him with the 17-time NBA champions for at least two more seasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel very comfortable,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cI like living here. I like playing for the Lakers. It\u2019s one of the best organizations in the world, so just being a Laker means a lot to me, and I feel very good here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>AP NBA: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA\" data-link=\"native\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers&#8217; Luka Doncic reacts to an officials call in the second half of Game 2 in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,30097,63,7896,11473,321474,590,146002,145996,145999,85],"class_list":["post-665778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-austin-reaves","tag-australia","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-luka-doncic-injury-lakers","tag-nba","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}