Is it safe to say that the Los Angeles Lakers' 2025-26 season is beyond saving? In one fateful night, the Lakers' championship hopes may have vanished completely after Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves suffered hamstring and oblique injuries, respectively, both of which are expected to keep them out for multiple weeks. With the playoffs starting in less than two weeks, the timing of these injuries could not be any worse for LA.
The Lakers might be playing the what-if game now; what if they just decided to rest Doncic, Reaves, and the rest of their key players during a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday? Perhaps the team would still be intact. What if they held Doncic out for the second half of that game when he had already been complaining about a hamstring issue earlier in the game?
All of that is spilled milk now, so there's no use for the Lakers to dwell on it. As much as some would want to blame Lakers head coach JJ Redick for risking it, Klutch Sports Group CEO Rich Paul believes that Redick doesn't deserve all the blame he's getting for Doncic's hamstring injury, especially when Doncic got the green light to return in the first place.
“It’s just a tough spot to be in as a coach. How I think about it, in these situations, it’s a collective,” Paul said on the Game Over podcast with Max Kellerman. “The decision makers probably weren’t all in one room. You have to try to decide, I have to get the information from the medical team. In JJ’s case the medical team said he can go.”
It's now on Paul's star client, LeBron James, to try and keep the Lakers afloat to perhaps buy some time for Doncic and Reaves to return. But knowing how hamstring injuries tend to be, erring on the side of caution might be the best move for LA to make over risking further harm by rushing his recovery.
