Seeking answers, Doncic travels abroad for a second opinion as Lakers question Dallas' injury diagnosis.
DALLAS - The Los Angeles Lakers zipped in and out of Dallas this weekend with the secondary story being their Easter Sunday loss to the lowly Mavs.
What could be bigger than the 134-128 upset of LeBron James' contending Lakers, a game in which Dallas rookie sensation outdueled LeBron with 45 points?
The fate of old friend Luka Doncic.
Doncic injured his hamstring in the Lakers' last game, a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. In the days since, the Lakers have been in Dallas preparing for the matchup with the Mavericks. It's been confirmed that Doncic, the NBA's leading scorer at over 33 points per game, has suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain and is out for at least the rest of the regular season.
Sitting on 64 games played on the year - one shy of the minimum to qualify for end-of-season awards - Doncic and his team will be filing a grievance in order to try to keep his candidacy for First Team All-NBA and potentially the MVP award.
"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," said Doncic's agent Bill Duffy, via ESPN.
"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 (Thursday's) unfortunate injury and other extraordinary circumstances."
And now another wrinkle, as Luka is again heading to "another continent'' in search of medical advice on that hamstring. ... news that comes on the heels of the Lakers ripping the Dallas medical team for its alleged mishandling of an examination of Doncic.
As the Mavs (25-53) are playing out the string on the way to the NBA Draft Lottery, Los Angeles (51-27) is fighting to keep the No. 3 seed in the current Western Conference playoff standings.
Their best bet at contention is, of course, to get Doncic back on the floor, where he's been brilliant since being traded by Dallas to LA a year ago. But right now, he's not on the floor. He's not even in the country. He is, in a very real way, on a world-wide search for an injury answer.