Luka Doncic is back in Los Angeles after traveling to Spain to get platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and stem cell treatments on his strained left hamstring, according to multiple reports.
Whether those treatments will get him back on the court during the first round of the playoffs when the Lakers take on the Houston Rockets is another question. While nothing is official, Doncic and Austin Reaves (oblique strain) are expected to miss the start of the first-round series, which tips off Saturday.
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Both Doncic and Reaves were injured on April 2 during a game against the Thunder. Players with a Grade 2 hamstring strain typically miss at least three weeks and more often four or five before returning to the court. PRP injections into a strained muscle have shown faster healing and a quicker return to play in some studies, but these were retrospective, not randomized, controlled studies, so there are still a lot of questions.
Doncic will take any edge he can get. With him and Reaves healthy, the Lakers had looked like an increasing threat in the West after the All-Star break. Now the Los Angeles heads into a playoff series with 41-year-old LeBron James as the primary shot creator, going against Houston’s sixth-ranked defense, led by the long and athletic Amen Thompson.
Without Doncic and Reaves, the Lakers are heavy underdogs against Houston.
Doncic played at an MVP level this season, averaging a league-leading 33.8 points per game, while adding 7.8 rebounds and 8.3 assists a night. However, because of the hamstring injury, he played in just 64 games, one short of the league office’s 65-game threshold to qualify for postseason awards. His agent and the Lakers filed an “extraordinary circumstances challenge” because Doncic missed two games earlier in the season to fly back to Slovenia for the birth of his child. The results of that appeal are expected to be public in the next 24 hours.
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