Lakers’ Luka Doncic at risk of suspension at terrible time for L.A. originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Los Angeles Lakers are going to need Luka Doncic to be careful over the next month or so.
Advertisement
Because if he’s not, he might land a one-game suspension from the NBA, and the stretch run in a playoff seeding battle would not be a great time for the Lakers to be without Doncic for a game.
The problem is this: Luka gets a lot of technical fouls.
If a player gets 16 techs in one regular season, it results in an automatic one-game suspension from the team’s next game.
On Tuesday night, Doncic picked up his 14th technical foul.
The Lakers still have 21 games left, so based on Doncic’s average of techs per game, he would reach 16 comfortably before the regular season is over.
MORE:Â Rip Hamilton’s son is committed to play D-I college basketball
Advertisement
The Lakers have learned how to play without Doncic this season already due to injury, but when it’s something that feels more in control like this, it’d be annoying to have Luka miss another game.
Doncic is clearly one of the league’s more animated talkers toward the officials. He’s often frustrated, both with calls he doesn’t get on offense and with calls against him on defense.
It’s hard to totally change a player’s behavior, but with Doncic this close to the technical foul suspension, it’d be worth it for the Lakers to at least see if they can tone him down a tad.
If it can be avoided, the Lakers would certainly like to not be missing Doncic for any more games.
Advertisement
One note: This resets when the playoffs arrive. So if Doncic hasn’t hit 16 by the postseason, he won’t have the same worry anymore.
More NBA news: