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Luka Don\u010di\u0107 remained sidelined during the postseason with a Grade 2 left hamstring strain suffered on April 2.<\/p>\n
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
Doncic incurred a grade 2 hamstring strain on April 2, and the NBA scoring champ missed the Lakers\u2019 final 15 games, including their entire postseason run. After a shocking first-round series victory over Houston without Doncic, Los Angeles\u2019 season ended Monday night\u00a0with a 115-110 loss\u00a0to the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who completed a four-game sweep.<\/p>\n
\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
Doncic said he is running and shooting, but he hasn\u2019t 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
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
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
\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
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\u2019 season ended Monday night, Doncic announced on social media that he won\u2019t play for Slovenia\u2019s national team this summer because he plans to continue to work toward acquiring joint custody of his daughters.<\/p>\n
\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
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
Doncic signed\u00a0a three-year, $165 million contract extension\u00a0with the Lakers last summer, keeping him with the 17-time NBA champions for at least two more seasons.<\/p>\n
\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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luka Don\u010di\u0107 remained sidelined during the postseason with a Grade 2 left hamstring strain suffered on April 2.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,205606,105],"class_list":["post-438358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-luka-doncic-injury","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}