The Lakers might be finishing up the first half of their season without Luka Dončić.
On Thursday, Luka limped off the floor late in the first half with what the team described as left leg soreness. He was
ruled out for Saturday’s game against the Warriors and prior to the contest, head coach JJ Redick provided a bit of an update on his status.
President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka also addressed the media pregame and shared a similar sentiment on Luka as well.
There are few things the Lakers love more than describing a player as day-to-day or game-to-game. It’s just descriptive enough to know it’s not a serious injury but just vague enough to have no clue when they’re actually returning.
The Lakers are under a week away from the All-Star break, so it certainly feels possible that he doesn’t play again until the team returns from their hiatus. That does, however, mean he would miss three games in the coming week.
After the Warriors game, the Lakers play as daunting a back-to-back as there is this season with the Thunder on Monday and the Spurs on Tuesday. They wrap up with a game against the Mavericks on Thursday. Each contest is at home.
While that would be a tough blow and make it very difficult for the Lakers to win those games, particularly the first two, it would mean that Luka would have two weeks off between games. It’s not ideal, but Luka has also pretty clearly been playing while banged up.
The Lakers are going to need him in their second half push, so perhaps it’s best to consider the long-term gain, even if it comes with a short-term loss. But the good news in all this is that the Lakers can talk about short-term losses only with this Luka injury.
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