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Luka Doncic #77 of the Los Angeles Lakers celebrates the 98-78 win against the Houston Rockets in Game Six of the First Round of the NBA Western Conference Playoffs at Toyota Center on May 01, 2026 in Houston, Texas.
The Oklahoma City Thunder would prefer to beat a full-strength Los Angeles Lakers team in their quest to repeat as NBA champions. Unfortunately, the Luka Doncic injury could preclude them from doing so.
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault issued a hopeful message to the Lakers on Saturday, declaring that a Doncic return is almost necessary to produce “the best product” for the NBA.
“It’d be the best for everybody if everybody was available all of the time,” Daigneault said after a practice session, via The Oklahoman’s Justin Martinez.
“It’d be the best product for the fans, the best for the league, and the best for the teams and the best for the players. It’s obviously not realistic. But we go into every series preparing for every possibility, and we’ll go into this series prepared.”
Mark Daigneault on Luka Doncic: “It’d be best for everybody if everybody was available all the time. That’d be the best product for the fans, best for me, best for the teams, best for the players. It’s obviously not realistic. We go into every series preparing for every
Doncic, who defeated Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Co. en route to the 2024 NBA Finals, will miss at least the first few games of the Lakers vs. Thunder series with a grade 2 hamstring strain. When he sustained the injury on April 2, Doncic was ruled out for at least four to six weeks. Based on that timeline, the Slovenian could potentially return for Game 4 on May 11 or Game 5 (if necessary) on May 13.
Per ClutchPoints’ Brett Siegel, Doncic will be reevaluated in a week.
“I’m told he’s being re-evaluated next week before potentially being cleared to increase his workouts/practice,” Siegel reported on Saturday.
“Won’t have a chance to return before the 2nd week of the series.”
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst also speculated this week that Doncic could return for the latter part of the Lakers vs Thunder series.
“I have no idea how Luka’s gonna be in 14 days from now, but most likely, you are not going to see Luka Doncic at the front end of this, maybe at least for another week, 10 days on the minimum,” he told “SC with SVP” on Friday.
While the Lakers continue to wait for Doncic, the one positive news is that Austin Reaves, who also sustained an injury on April 2, returned for Games 5 and 6 against the Rockets and is expected to be a full go for Game 1 vs. the Thunder on Tuesday.
Daigneault and the Thunder know that Reaves is more than capable of carrying the Lakers’ offensive workload with LeBron James.
“They’re adding an extremely high usage player that’s great at drawing fouls, really savvy shooter at all three levels,” Daigneault said of Reaves, via ClutchPoints.
“He’s just a very crafty, skilled player and someone that they can play through. Somebody that they can get the ball to and then can generate offense for them. Anytime any team adds a player like that, it’s potent. It certainly changes the equation when he’s in there. His usage was through the roof last game.”
Lakers vs. Thunder Game 1 tips off at 8:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Sai Mohan covers the NBA for Heavy.com. Based in Portugal, Sai is a seasoned sports writer with nearly two decades of publishing experience, including bylines at Yardbarker, FanSided's Hoops Habit, International Business Times, Hindustan Times and more. More about Sai Mohan
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