The Los Angeles Lakers ruled out Luka Dončić on Monday, one day before Game 1 of their second-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He remains sidelined by a Grade 2 hamstring strain, and his status beyond the opener is still unclear.
That leaves the Lakers to open another series without the player who led the league in scoring with 33.5 points per game, along with 8.3 assists, 7.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals. 's Shams Charania reported Sunday that Dončić is on a slow path to recovery and has not returned to full-contact workouts, while coach JJ Redick said he had no updates on Luka.
Dončić missed the final six games of the regular season with the hamstring injury and then sat out the Lakers' first-round win over the Houston Rockets. Los Angeles got through that round even though Austin Reaves missed the first three games, and Rui Hachimura and Marcus Smart started all six games while Dončić was out. LeBron James led the Lakers in scoring even after Reaves returned, helping the team advance despite the absences.
The Thunder present a different test. Oklahoma City led the league in defensive rating for a second straight season and swept the Lakers in the regular season, a reminder of how much the matchup can tilt when Los Angeles is short-handed. Houston also spent much of its series undermanned, with Kevin Durant sidelined for five of the series' six games, but that sort of opening has not changed the central fact for the Lakers now: they are headed into Game 1 without Dončić and without a clear timetable for when he returns.
For the Lakers, the question is no longer whether they can survive one round without him. It is how long they can keep doing it against a team built to punish every weak spot.
