{"id":6567,"date":"2026-04-04T01:31:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/04\/luka-doncic-to-miss-rest-of-regular-season-with-hamstring-injury-lakers-announce-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:31:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:31:58","slug":"luka-doncic-to-miss-rest-of-regular-season-with-hamstring-injury-lakers-announce-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/04\/luka-doncic-to-miss-rest-of-regular-season-with-hamstring-injury-lakers-announce-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Don\u010di\u0107 to miss rest of regular season with hamstring injury, Lakers announce – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA
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The Lakers' star was leading the NBA in scoring. Alonzo Adams \/ Imagn Images<\/span>
DALLAS \u2014 The Los Angeles Lakers will not have Luka Don\u010di\u0107 for the remainder of the regular season and almost certainly won\u2019t have their star guard available to them whenever they begin the NBA playoffs.
An MRI revealed Don\u010di\u0107 suffered a Grade 2 left hamstring strain, the Lakers announced Friday, while only revealing he will not play the rest of the regular season. The Lakers have only five games remaining on their schedule and could begin their first-round playoff series six days after that \u2014 a little more than two weeks after Don\u010di\u0107 suffered the injury in Thursday\u2019s blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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The injury punctures whatever hopes the Lakers had for their postseason. Don\u010di\u0107 and the Lakers were amid a surge in the West standings, having risen to third place on the back of a 15-2 March. Don\u010di\u0107 earned Western Conference Player of the Month honors while making a late push for his first MVP award.
The Lakers built their 50-win season around Don\u010di\u0107, the league\u2019s leader in scoring and usage rate. Don\u010di\u0107 is averaging a league-leading 33.5 points in 64 games, along with 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists per contest.
Los Angeles is 7-6 without Don\u010di\u0107 this season. The Lakers\u2019 best wins in that stretch came on the road against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Toronto Raptors, when Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura hit game-winning shots at the buzzer.
The team will likely ask Reaves and LeBron James to take on expanded offensive roles in Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s absence. The Lakers play the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday before hosting the Thunder on Tuesday. The Lakers also have an away game against the Golden State Warriors and home games against the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz before the end of the regular season.
Entering Friday\u2019s action, the Lakers have a one-game lead on the Denver Nuggets for the No. 3 seed in the West and control the tiebreak scenarios with the Nuggets, Houston Rockets and Timberwolves. The Lakers are 2 1\/2 games ahead of Houston, the current No. 5 seed in the West.
Though Don\u010di\u0107 will end up one game short of eligibility for postseason awards such as MVP and all-NBA, he plans to appeal under the NBA\u2019s \u201cExtraordinary Circumstances Challenge\u201d because two of his missed games occurred when he returned to Slovenia for his second daughter\u2019s birth, agent Bill Duffy said in a statement to The Athletic<\/em> and other media outlets. That provision could allow him to regain eligibility if the league determines \u201cit was impracticable for him to play in one or more of the Regular Season game(s) that he missed during such Season.\u201d
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\u201cLuka has gone to great lengths to show up for his team and this league this season. His record-breaking season deserves to be noted in the history books, despite last night\u2019s unfortunate injury and other extraordinary circumstances,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cWe look forward to working with the NBAPA and the league office to ensure a fair outcome in this matter.\u201d
The injury ends Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s first full regular season with the Lakers. After a stunning trade to the organization in 2025, Don\u010di\u0107 entered training camp with a remade body, having lost significant weight while adding muscle.
Don\u010di\u0107 scored 43 and 49 points in the Lakers\u2019 first two games before missing three games with a finger injury. He returned and added a 44-point game in his third appearance. Don\u010di\u0107 finished his season having scored 40 or more points in 16 of his 64 games. His season high came on the second night of a back-to-back in Miami, when he scored 60 points against the Heat.
Don\u010di\u0107 was building momentum to be considered for his first MVP award before Thursday\u2019s game in Oklahoma City. After a disastrous start for Don\u010di\u0107 and his team, the Lakers guard was seen grabbing at his left hamstring late in the first half. He received treatment at halftime and was cleared to return to action.
A little more than four minutes into the second half, Don\u010di\u0107 drove on Oklahoma City\u2019s Jalen Williams, planting his left leg and immediately dropping the basketball as he reached for his hamstring.
Soon after, he fell to the ground and covered his face in frustration. He did the same with his jersey as he limped off the court and into the Lakers\u2019 locker room. Los Angeles trailed by 32 points at the time.
\u201cAt this point, at this juncture of the season, it\u2019s the last thing you want to see,\u201d James said after the game.
The recent history of Grade 2 hamstring injuries is discouraging for Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s outlook.
Nuggets forward Peyton Watson recently missed 20 games in 46 days because of a Grade 2 right hamstring strain. Watson reaggravated the injury Wednesday and is considered week to week.
Watson\u2019s teammate Aaron Gordon tried to play with a Grade 2 hamstring strain in the playoffs last season. He suffered the injury in November, missing 20 games in 44 days, then injured his hamstring again in January and missed 18 more games in 42 days.
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Thunder star Jalen Williams, who was guarding Don\u010di\u0107 at the time of the injury, missed 10 games over 23 days with an initial right hamstring strain. After a successful return on the road against the Lakers on Feb. 9, Williams reinjured the hamstring in Phoenix on Feb. 11. The second hamstring injury cost Williams 17 games in 40 days.
Going further back, James Harden had a Grade 2 hamstring strain in January 2018 that cost him eight games in 18 days. He also said he played with a Grade 2 hamstring strain during the 2021 playoffs after missing Games 2-4 of the Brooklyn Nets\u2019 semifinals series against the Milwaukee Bucks.
\u2014 Sam Amick and Law Murray contributed to this story.<\/strong>
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Dan Woike<\/a><\/strong> covers the Los Angeles Lakers for The Athletic. He’s written about professional basketball in Los Angeles since 2011, first for the Orange County Register and most recently for the Los Angeles Times. His work has been recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Pro Basketball Writers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club and the California News Publishers Association. He’s originally from Chicago.<\/span> Follow Dan on Twitter @DanWoikeSports<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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NBANBA SeasonLatestThe Lakers' star was leading the NBA in scoring. Alonzo Adams \/ Imagn ImagesDALLAS \u2014 The Los Angeles Lakers will not have Luka Don\u010di\u0107 for the remainder of the regular season and almost certainly won\u2019t have their star guard available to them whenever they begin the NBA playoffs.An MRI revealed Don\u010di\u0107 suffered a Grade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}