{"id":168829,"date":"2026-02-08T04:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T04:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168829\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T04:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T04:08:08","slug":"luke-kennard-makes-lakers-debut-luka-doncic-expected-back-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168829\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Kennard makes Lakers debut; Luka Doncic expected back soon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the night the Lakers introduced the newly-acquired guard Luke Kennard<\/a>, they also discuss relatively good news about Luka Doncic\u2019s injury<\/a> and how long he\u2019ll be out.<\/p>\n

The Lakers<\/a> said Doncic was diagnosed with a mild left hamstring strain and will be listed as day-to-day, starting with Saturday night\u2019s game against the Golden State Warriors at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n

The Lakers play Oklahoma Monday night and San Antonio Tuesday night before playing the Dallas Mavericks Thursday night. The NBA All-Star game follows on Feb. 15 and the Lakers don\u2019t play again until Feb. 20 against the Clippers at home.<\/p>\n

So, Lakers coach JJ Redick<\/a> and president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka both were asked Saturday night if Doncic would be able to play in the all-star game or if it would be best for him to rest. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been around him as a teammate and as a coach and I know he [loves to] plays. If he\u2019s able to play, he plays. I think he wants to be in the all-star game,\u201d Redick said. \u201cI know he wants to play against Dallas, the game before the all-star game. He has his team working on him day and night. So again, it\u2019s day to day and when he\u2019s ready to play, we\u2019ll get him out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doncic, who leads the NBA in scoring (32.8) and is second in assists (8.6), earned the most all-star game votes. In the new all-star game format of \u201cU.S. vs. the World,\u201d Doncic would play for the world team because he\u2019s from Slovenia.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuka, one of his greatest qualities is when he has an injury or he\u2019s unavailable for a game, he is deeply upset,\u201d Pelinka, who spoke to the media for the first time since September. \u201cHe just can\u2019t stand not playing basketball. He loves the game so much and wants to play every night. And that\u2019s an incredible quality. Just a player who\u2019s like fighting and clawing to play versus looking for a reason maybe not to. So we commend Luka for that. In terms of this injury, the good news is it doesn\u2019t appear to be anything serious. It was a mild hamstring strain and he is truly day to day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennard didn\u2019t waste any time making an impact for the Lakers during their game against the Warriors.<\/p>\n

He drilled his first shot as a Laker, a high arching 25-foot three pointer with 2:23 left in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

The shot was set up by Austin Reaves, giving Kennard a glimpse of what life will be like playing with the Lakers\u2019 big three of LeBron James, Doncic and Reaves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose guys attract so much attention to other teams on the offensive end and for me, it\u2019s just spacing the floor, making the right plays at all times and just being aggressive out there,\u201d Kennard said before the game about his role. \u201cComing off the bench and just looking to hunt my shot at all times. I know that\u2019s what they want me to do as a team and the coaches and I\u2019m looking forward to doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Etc.<\/p>\n

Pelinka said the Lakers have a roster spot available and will look at the buy-out market to potentially find a player to add to the team. But, according to people with knowledge of the matter not authorized to discuss it publicly, the Lakers don\u2019t have interest in Cam Thomas, a 6-foot-3 guard who was waived by the Brooklyn Nets.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, so we have an open roster spot and we are in sort of active conversations with some players that are available now, doing our due diligence,\u201d Pelinka said. \u201cAnd then of course, to your point, players down the road could come in through the buyout market. So, we are evaluating that 15th roster spot and at some point probably will likely fill it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the night the Lakers introduced the newly-acquired guard Luke Kennard, they also discuss relatively good news about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[217,11148,81066,9831,423,349,80281,48,52,51,81067,1415,47,50,49,7551,19075,1869,81068,9442,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-168829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-day","9":"tag-first-point","10":"tag-first-shot","11":"tag-first-time","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-injury","14":"tag-kennard","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-laker-debut","19":"tag-lakers","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","22":"tag-los-angeles-news","23":"tag-luka-doncic","24":"tag-nba-all-star-game","25":"tag-night","26":"tag-pelinka","27":"tag-player","28":"tag-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}