As the Los Angeles Lakers come to terms with Luka Dončić’s Grade 2 hamstring strain, the immediate questions are as obvious as they are urgent.
How long is the recovery timeline? And more importantly, will the Lakers’ superstar be back in time for the NBA playoffs, which begin April 18?
So far, we know for sure only that Dončić will miss the rest of the regular season. The Lakers, currently third in the West with a 50-27 record, have only five games remaining and could begin their first-round playoff series six days after that.
But the recovery timeline for a Grade 2 hamstring strain, also known as a partial tear, is rarely clear-cut. In fact, recent NBA history offers more reason for Dončić and the Lakers to be discouraged instead of optimistic. Around the league, comparable injuries have followed a pattern: initial absences in the three- to six-week range, followed by a heightened risk of reinjury.
Peyton Watson, for example, offers a recent reminder of just how fragile the recovery process can be. The 23-year-old Denver Nuggets forward missed 19 games over 46 days with a Grade 2 right hamstring strain earlier this season. Just as he was working his way back, Watson aggravated the injury Wednesday and is now listed as week to week.
Aaron Gordon, Watson’s teammate, is another cautionary tale. The 30-year-old was a shell of himself when he attempted to play through a Grade 2 hamstring strain in Game 7 of last season’s second-round playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Earlier this season, the same injury cost him 19 games in 44 days. Then, Gordon reinjured his hamstring in January, which led to another extended absence of 17 games over 42 days.
Jalen Williams is perhaps the most relevant analogue to Dončić’s current situation. The 24-year-old Oklahoma City Thunder wing, who was defending Dončić at the time of the latter’s injury, missed 10 games in 23 days with a right hamstring strain earlier this season. He returned briefly, only to suffer a second hamstring injury two days later in Phoenix that sidelined him for an additional 16 games across 40 days.
“That’s been the hardest part of the season. Not playing, then playing, then I get into a rhythm, and then I miss too many games,” Williams said after Thursday’s game. “I’ve been relatively healthy my whole career, (so) I got to learn a lot about myself.”
There are some cases of players returning to the court sooner. James Harden dealt with a Grade 2 hamstring strain in January 2018 but missed only seven games in 18 days. A similar timeline would allow Dončić to return in the first round of the playoffs.
More notably, during the 2021 postseason with the Brooklyn Nets, Harden missed just three games after going down with a hamstring injury in Game 1 of their second-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks. Yet Harden, like Gordon last postseason, looked like a shell of himself upon returning, and the Nets lost the series.
That’s the conundrum the Lakers and Dončić now face. Hamstring injuries are notoriously tricky, particularly for players such as Dončić, whose games rely on herky-jerky changes of speed and direction. While the urgency to accelerate the 27-year-old’s return for the postseason will be real, doing so certainly carries a significant risk as well.
If the Lakers are thinking long term, the more conservative path of holding Dončić out for the playoffs may be warranted. They didn’t just sign Dončić to be their star for now. They also hope he’ll be their centerpiece of the future.
In other words: The bigger question isn’t whether Dončić will be back by the playoffs. It’s whether a return at any point this season is worth the risk.