Luka Dončić: Grade II Hamstring Strain, Likely to Miss 1st Round of Playoffs

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This is Brian Kiminatsky co-host of Locked On Lakers, Andy is away, lucky for him.

So the news on Luka Donge is in and it is not great, could be worse, I guess, but from

a practical standpoint, the Lakers are in bad shape here.

A grade two hamstring strain is the official diagnosis.

The Lakers are saying only at this point that he will not play in the rest of the regular

season, no surprise there.

But the average length of recovery for an injury like this is three to six weeks.

Jeff Stotz at In Street Close, one of the great injury experts in the NBA, says the average

time lost to this injury is 35 days.

If you're looking for context, Peyton Watson has been dealing with this injury, a grade

two hamstring for most of the second half of the season.

He took him about 45 days to come back and just left again, the lineup is now once again

week to week with the same hamstring strain.

It can be a slow injury to heal Luka, had a hamstring injury earlier in the season that

cost him about a week, 10 days or so that got him back in the all start break, all start

game, I should say.

This is a different deal altogether.

Some important dates here.

The Lakers probably start the first round of the playoffs somewhere around April 18th.

Obviously this puts that in jeopardy at the short end, three weeks doesn't cover, cover

you to get to the first round of the playoffs.

Surely, Luka will miss the first round of the playoffs.

I would be very, very surprised if Luka was able to come back, like genuinely able to

come back, not he's willing to try, he's going to give it a go, he's going to do something

like that and still make it back in time for that first round of the playoffs.

The Lakers, and we'll talk about this, I'll talk about this a little bit more before we're

done here, but certainly we'll talk about it more as we get into next week in these last

five games and the Lakers trying to pin down where they're going to finish likely either

third or fourth in the conference.

Lakers have to be really careful with what they do here going forward.

In three weeks, Luka might feel like he is willing to give it a try in four weeks, whatever

it might be, halfway through the first round, even into the second round where the Lakers

to make it through, and I am not willing to write off their chances of winning a first

round series, but obviously they are significantly diminished without Luka.

It does help the Lakers are almost sure to open that first round at home, but we'll see

about that.

The timeline puts the Lakers likely not to see Luka again this season unless they are

playing into May, and I don't mean by a day or two, I mean, you know, two weeks, three

weeks into May, that means they're going to have to get through a second round matchup

with against a San Antonio against Oklahoma City, whatever it might be, they're going

to have to get through that before you could realistically see Luka.

I mean, again, I see people in the chat as we go live on YouTube pointing out that, you

know, Peyton Watson, again, needed about six weeks, Aaron Gordon needed about six weeks.

Watson especially has re-injured that hamstring, Gordon re-injured the hamstring.

You just, you have to be real careful.

You come back too fast from this one.

There's almost a, it seems like almost a guarantee that you're going to find some complications

and the Lakers, there are the short-term implications.

You can say, yeah, you know, he's got all summer to heal.

That's true, but what you don't want to do is take this soft tissue injury and make

it become a chronic thing, where if, you know, this is something that plagues Luka going

forward where you, you worry about, you know, having to have, you know, it gets so bad

you need some sort of hamstring surgery, whatever it might be, you got to be really, really

careful.

Players have, you know, Aaron Gordon, I think it was maybe the last year, two years ago,

I forget, tried to play quickly on this and, you know, I don't know, I can't, I'm not

a doctor.

I can't say for certain that one thing has led to another, but he is continuing to suffer

from hamstring problems.

And for a guy like Luka, whose game is predicated on starting, stopping, changing speeds, changing

directions, this is the type of injury that you have to be really careful with.

So I think the Lakers are going to proceed, obviously, he's not going to play the rest

of the regular season.

I think their Lakers are probably going to proceed as if he is not going to play at all

this season, period.

And that is, I think, the smart way to do this, Luka is going to want to try to play,

but the Lakers shouldn't let him.

You have to balance this against not just his future, but the teams.

And so over the next couple of weeks, you know, we will get deeper into what it means

for the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, who are they going to play?

It looks like, again, the Lakers still have an excellent chance to hold onto a three seed

with five games left and what amounts to a two game lead on Denver.

Lakers play three teams that are either tanking in the case of Dallas on Sunday and then

Utah and trying very hard not to win.

And then you also have the Golden State Warriors who just aren't that good, even with stuff

coming back.

They are just not that good.

So you have that.

You have another game against Oklahoma City and then you have a game against Phoenix.

So one truly high end team, a playoff caliber team in the Suns, you know, barely a play

in team with Golden State and then you have the two games against the tanking team.

So after the break, next I want to talk a little bit about my thoughts on what could

be coming with the Lakers, how likely they are to be able to thrive, who's got to step

up, what has to happen for the Lakers to find a little bit of success and perhaps defy

the odds a little bit by the end of the season.

So we will do all of that coming up next.

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So what happens now, I mean, we'll set aside the obvious tremendous disappointment for

Lakers fans for the Lakers themselves who have been one of the best teams in the league

over the last, you know, whatever it is six weeks since they've gone on this run, setting

all that aside for a minute, you know, you can set aside the disappointment of Luca.

I think last night's result of the game before the injury kind of solidified the MVP race

or the very least that Luca wasn't going to win but the, you know, the postseason award

thing is an issue right now, Luca wouldn't qualify.

There is a way for Luca to appeal this, his agent put out a statement today.

The Lakers are that they'll be appealing.

There's an extraordinary circumstances provision with the 65 game rule and the Lakers will

say that Luca would have been able to play cross that 65 game threshold.

If not for the two games that he missed to fly to Europe for the birth of his child,

those are games that he was healthy for, would have been able to play at least 20 minutes

certainly in one of them.

I can't imagine that the league won't grant that petition, not just because it's, you

know, the right thing.

It's a reasonable application of that rule but also because in this season where they

have lost so many players to that 65 game threshold and the backlash is so strong for

how people are reacting to it.

The idea that you're going to disqualify Luca after he suffers this injury with 64 games

under his belt when he did have a perfectly plausible and reasonable explanation for why

he missed two games.

He actually got back pretty quickly from that trip, missed two games again to go to Europe

for the birth of his child.

I would be absolutely floored if the Lakers, sorry, if the league does not give him that

dispensation to be able to qualify for presumably first team all NBA, it is small consolation.

I'm sure Luca would trade first team all NBA for a chance to actually participate in

playoffs and give the Lakers a deep run.

But what he has done this season is agent Bill Duffy said the same thing, it deserves

to be honored in that way.

So it sucks that he's not going to be able to play.

At the very least, the body of work for the regular season ought to be recognized and

again, I would be extraordinarily surprised if the league does not grant him that waiver.

So again, the Lakers have five games remaining.

The primary thing they have to focus on first and foremost is health.

They have to make sure that everybody who is potentially available is there had been

some talk that Marcus Smart who has been out missed six games with an ankle injury could

be on the floor as soon as Sunday against Dallas.

That would obviously be a great sign they need everybody and they certainly weren't going

deep.

Andy and I have talked about this a lot.

They weren't going deep into the playoffs before any of this happened with Luca.

They weren't going deep into the playoffs without Marcus Smart anyway.

Now they obviously need to have him the defense, the ability to defend at a high level is

going to be even more critical with no Luca on the floor.

So that's step one, step two Austin Reeves has to be healthy.

He was holding on to his side lower back kind of thing.

He left the court briefly during Thursday's annihilation at the hands of the thunder.

He did come back and finish the game.

The Lakers are obviously going to have to make sure that he is fully healthy.

It is much more important the Lakers enter the playoffs with everybody that they have available,

everybody and everybody.

Then it is to keep the three seed versus the four seed.

Get what you get.

They're almost certain to open at home if they win at least one more game and I think they

will even without Luca.

When you look ahead to the post season, there is obviously the hope that LeBron maybe

has one more post season of magic in him that this change in the way he's being used over

the last couple of months will leave him with enough energy to perhaps put a team on his

back to get through a one more playoff series.

That would be a great story.

I think to see that as an NBA fan, even if ultimately it doesn't amount to some sort of

long run down the playoffs to have that.

It's one series at a time at this point, one game at a time at this point, can LeBron

carry them through?

That's one thing.

The real responsibility, though, and the player that everybody is going to be watching

is Austin Reeves because we're now going into a season where Austin is set for a major

payday.

He is going to expect to be paid like a front line star, $35, $40 million, whatever it's

going to turn out to be.

If that's the case, then he needs to perform in this first round, like a player who is

worth $35, $40 million.

He simply cannot afford to have the Lakers cannot afford to have the kind of series that

he had against Minnesota where it was a big struggle.

That has to get better.

Austin in games earlier this season where his usage goes up in Lucas Absence, his responsibility

goes up in Lucas Absence.

He has performed extremely well.

Austin has played great in those games that stretch early in the season.

I think it was November, December, and other games since then, without Luca, Austin has

been great.

It's one thing to do that in the regular season.

It's another thing to do that against a team like Minnesota, against a team like Houston,

both of whom can be very strong defensively.

That said, it is an enormous opportunity for AR.

It's an enormous opportunity for Deandre Aiden.

His place on this team changes.

He is no longer a guy that hustle, rebound, disrupt, block shots.

They now need 14 to 18 a night from him, at least.

So Deandre Aiden's got to figure out Marcus Smart's going to have to be a bit more of

a score.

The Lakers got to find 35 points somewhere, 40, 45 on some nights.

Some of that's going to come from LeBron, more shots for LeBron.

Some of that's going to come from Austin, more shots for Austin.

But those two guys are not going to make up for the 35 points of night that Luca was

providing.

Somewhere down the roster, they got to find them.

I am not willing to write off the rest of the season because Luca's hurt.

I do think they have a chance to win in the first round, but obviously the circumstances

are significantly worse.

It was not intentional for me to set up today's show in front of the wine and the bar cart.

But it is probably what a lot of people are thinking right now.

You're a Laker fan and you're over 21.

You're probably thinking, watching this show, oh, I could use some Tequila or I could

use a little bit of red.

And I will not blame you for that, no judgments.

But as you can see, I'm ready to go for the weekend to mourn this loss and then we're

going to get right back into it and try to figure out ways that the Lakers can keep on

keeping on.

The Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 38,000 subscribers.

I'll be back on barring any news in between, be back after the game on Sunday and you will

be gone.

We've got a couple special guests lined up for Sunday and Monday.

So make sure you are checking out the show for the end and we'll see everyone next time.