After going down with a hamstring strain late in the regular season, Luka Dončić’s race to get back to full health didn’t turn out to be much of a race at all.
Luka made it pretty clear he wasn’t close to a return during the series and, if you needed any more evidence, his full return to basketball activities came long after the series ended. In his piece on Tuesday for ESPN, Dave McMenamin revealed that Luka was only cleared in late May.
He was cleared for basketball activities on May 28 — about 2½
weeks after their series against the Thunder finished, sources close to Doncic told ESPN.
“He’s in full go mode,” one source said.
As a point of reference, Game 6 of the Spurs-Thunder series was on May 28, showing just how far away Luka was. Had the Lakers somehow advanced to the Western Conference Finals, they would have only had Luka for the very end of the series, to say nothing of the amount of rust he would have had.
Luka’s injury occurred on April 2, meaning it cost him exactly eight weeks. After initial optimism that he may return before Austin Reaves, it turned out to be not even close in terms of return timelines. Austin was back for the first round against the Rockets, which surprised even the Lakers.
Luka, meanwhile, had an injury that was even more severe than the team initially believed. It was a brutal blow at the end of a brilliant season for both him and the Lakers.
The silver lining, if there is one, is that Luka should still have a fairly normal offseason schedule. It’s likely he would have taken some time off at the end of the season regardless, so there won’t be much about his schedule which has changed with this injury.
By also opting out of games with the Slovenian national team, there’s even less stress that’ll be put on his body. It’ll be an important summer of not just recuperating, but continuing the work he did to his body last offseason.
Fortunately, he’ll also get to spend most of it healthy.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
