Luka Doncic injury update: Lakers star to seek specialized medical treatment in Europe on hamstring

Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic is making a big move to make sure he can recover from his injured hamstring as quickly as possible. According to Shams Charania and Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Doncic will seek specialized medical treatment in Europe for his Grade 2 left hamstring. He decided after consulting with the Lakers and his own medical team.

On Friday, the Lakers announced that Luka Doncic will miss at least the rest of the regular season due to the injury. He suffered the injury during the third quarter of the Lakers’ 139-96 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday afternoon.

This means that Doncic will not be eligible to win any end-of-season awards because he would not have played at least 65 regular-season games. However, his agent, Bill Duffy of WME Basketball, told ESPN that he will apply for an “Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge” so Doncic can potentially win an award or two.

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“This season, Luka Doncic has performed at a historic level, leading the league in scoring, carrying the Lakers to third place in the Western Conference and placing himself in the middle of one of the most tightly contested MVP races in memory,” Duffy said in a statement to ESPN. “To ensure that Luka’s incredible accomplishments this season are rightly honored and he can be considered for the league’s end-of-season awards, we intend to apply for an ‘Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge’ to the 65-game rule.

“Luka missed two games this season for the birth of his second child in Slovenia. His daughter was born on Dec. 4, on another continent, and yet he was back in the United States competing with his team on Dec. 6. Luka 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’s unfortunate injury and other extraordinary circumstances. 

Doncic has played in 64 games this season and has averaged 33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 8.3 assists per contest. This is his first full season with the Lakers after the franchise acquired him from the Dallas Mavericks in a massive trade last year. In his career, Doncic has been named an All-Star six times and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting five times.