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OKLAHOMA CITY — The last time the Lakers were in Oklahoma City, Luka Doncic’s regular season ended because of a Grade 2 left hamstring strain he suffered in the April 2 loss to the Thunder. 

More than a month later, Doncic reaffirmed his desire to return during the playoffs.  

Doncic told reporters the update on Wednesday during a media availability in between Tuesday’s Game 1 loss to the Thunder and Thursday’s Game 2 of the best-of-seven second-round playoff series. 

“Obviously, this is a different injury than I ever had,” said Doncic, who was sidelined for four games in February because of a mild left hamstring injury. “It’s been [the] second time I [injured the hamstring this season]. So recovery has been a little longer. But I’m feeling good. Working every day, so I’m trying to come back.” 

Originally, the injury was expected to have a recovery timeline of four to six weeks, but Doncic said he was told eight weeks.

Thursday marks five weeks since the injury happened. Eight weeks from Doncic’s injury is May 28 — which is 10 days after a potential Game 7 of a Lakers-Thunder series.

Doncic started running on the injured hamstring, the next step in his return-to-play protocol.

“It’s very frustrating,” Doncic said. “I don’t think people understand how frustrating it is. All I wanna do is play basketball, especially this time. It’s the best time to play basketball. It’s very frustrating seeing what my team is doing. I’m very proud of them. It’s been very tough, too, just to sit and watch them play.”

Right after the injury happened, Doncic traveled to Spain for advanced treatment aimed at accelerating recovery. He received four PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections.

“Everybody knows that Spain, they’re just one of the best countries to do that,” Doncic said. “And obviously, I talked with the Lakers’ doctors, so everybody agreed for me to go there. Obviously, I know and trust lots of people from Spain that I used to work before. But why I was in Spain so long is because I needed four days in between every shot. So I did it four times. So that’s why I stayed longer.”

Luka Doncic: "I went to Spain to do PRP. Everybody knows that Spain, they're just one of the best countries to do that…I know and trust lots of people from Spain. Why I was in Spain so long is because I needed four days in between every shot. So I did it four times. So that's… pic.twitter.com/16xtKAuMhp

— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) May 6, 2026

When asked about the PRP injections potentially expediting his recovery, Doncic responded: “I’m just in the process, I’m working every day. I feel better every day. Like I said, in the beginning they say eight weeks. So we just go from there.”

Game 3 and Game 4 of the Lakers-Thunder series are scheduled Saturday and Monday at Crypto.com Arena.

Doncic didn’t have a concrete answer when asked if he’d try to ramp things up when the series shifts to Los Angeles.

“I’m just doing everything I can,” he said. “Every day I’m doing stuff I’m supposed to do. Obviously recovery, now I’m working. But like I said, doctor said eight weeks at the beginning of the first MRI. Just going day by day, and I feel better every day.”

Luka Doncic's response when asked whether he'll try to ramp up his return-to-play process for when Lakers-Thunder shifts back to L.A.: "I'm just doing everything I can, like I said, every day I'm doing stuff I'm supposed to do. The doctors said 8 weeks at the beginning of the 1st… pic.twitter.com/ab2kaCQavE

— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) May 6, 2026

Doncic had an incredible season before suffering the hamstring strain April 2. He became the second player in NBA history to score 600-plus points in March, alongside Michael Jordan. Over that period, he led the Lakers on a 16-2 run.

“We had an amazing month of March,” Doncic said. “The injury came in the worst moment probably for me. But I think other guys just stepped up really good. But it was very frustrating for me.” 

Yet he wasn’t even an MVP finalist this season despite leading the league in scoring (33.5 points), finishing third in assists (8.3) and sixth in steals (1.6).

It’s a tough break for Doncic, who came into training camp in arguably the best shape of his career. Motivated by the shocking trade that sent him to Hollywood from Dallas, he carried the Lakers to fourth place in the West after playing in 64 games and averaging 35.8 minutes per game.

Without Doncic, the Lakers shocked the Rockets in six games to advance to the Western Conference semifinals against the defending champions.

“Everybody had us out; everybody had us [losing in] five, six games, and we proved it,” Doncic said. “We can play. The way everybody stepped up is truly amazing to see. So hopefully they continue that.”

Despite limiting reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to 18 points and getting an incredible game from LeBron James, the Lakers suffered a 108-90 loss in Game 1.

“When you play against the world champions and [miss] having a guy that averages 34 [points] and eight [rebounds] and nine [assists] and is that special, that’s [tough],” James said regarding the Lakers missing Doncic.

With Doncic on his way back, the Lakers could return to full strength with James and Austin Reaves and have a legitimate chance at pulling off one of the biggest postseason upsets of the decade.

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“Obviously, we always want to have Luka out there,” Reaves said Sunday. “He’s one of the best players in the league, if not the best player. It’s definitely a different task. Everyone has to play differently to create and fill the void of the things he does for us.”

Luka Doncic: "This is a different injury than I've ever had…the recovery's been a little bit longer. Working every day, trying to come back."

Mentioned that he hasn't started doing contact work yet. https://t.co/PMFA5n20Qwpic.twitter.com/cbfcVpVLXE

— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) May 6, 2026

Against a team as good as the Thunder, there is no margin for error. LeBron James discussed the attention to detail required for LA to have success against OKC before the series even began.

So, when LA played Game 1 and had 18 turnovers, that didn’t exactly put them in a position for success. The result went as expected: the Thunder beat the Lakers fairly easily.

After the loss, Lakers head coach JJ Redick mentioned how the process was good, but the execution was lacking.

“When we made gameplan mistakes, they hurt us,” Redick said. “I thought the Houston Game 5 was the most gameplan mistakes we made in a playoff game so far. We, obviously, lost that game. You’re playing the world champs. Your margin for error is not very high. You can make mistakes. Basketball is a game full of mistakes. There were just too many tonight. We got to clean that up.”

Despite the final score, the Lakers stayed within reach of the Thunder early on. It was an eight-point game at halftime, and midway through the third quarter they cut the lead to four. However, OKC requires 48 minutes of concentration. LA missed their next three shot attempts, Jaxson Hayes had a turnover and the Thunder went on a 6-0 run, bringing the lead back up to double figures.

“I just think we had some gameplan breakdowns,” LeBron said. “What we’ve been preparing, we had some breakdowns. They’re going to test you, obviously. They’re going to see how many times they can make you have gameplan breakdowns. We had a few, almost too many versus a team like this. We know what they’re capable of doing. They can go on a run where it’s like ‘We got them right here, it’s a two-possession game, three-possession game’ and then boom, it’s a double-digit lead. That’s what some of the great teams do. Can’t have compound mistakes.”

Minus LeBron, every other Laker has room for improvement. Jake LaRavia was struggling and gave the team nothing offensively. Austin Reaves had one of his worst games ever. He shot 3-16 from the field and had a team-high four turnovers.

Reaves is supposed to be the franchise guard, and that performance wasn’t even close to good enough.

“Just made a couple mental mistakes…If you watched [OKC] throughout the year, every time you make a couple mistakes in a row, they capitalize on those,” Reaves said.”

The good news is that this series is still very early. OKC did their job and won their home game. The Lakers want to steal one and that’s still on the table with Game 2 set for Thursday. For them to accomplish this, they’ll have to be better in every statistical category, and the last thing they need is self-inflicted errors.

“Those little mistakes are going to hurt,” Hachimura said. “We talked about it after the game. Those little stuff, they hurt us. This is the first game. Of course, we have more games but I think we have to communicate better on those mistakes. Especially after coming out of timeouts, those are going to be important positions for us so we have to lock in.”

You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.

The Mavericks introduced Masai Ujiri as their new president of basketball operations on Tuesday. He answered questions for about 45 minutes, where he spoke about his background, his time off from basketball, and his hope of turning Cooper Flagg into a king. But it wasn’t Ujiri who inspired the most hope in me on Tuesday. It was team governor Patrick Dumont. The last question he was asked revolved around what he learned about the NBA that would make this job better for Masai and ultimately make the Mavericks a better franchise:

“I think it has to do with communication and collaboration within the organization,” Dumont said. “That having the right leadership is key, but having those leaders work together with a common goal is what sets franchises apart. That, to me, is the big difference.”

His answer here means something. It was just 20 seconds at the end of a long presser, but the emphasis he put on communication and collaboration indicates a level of self-awareness that is important. Not even 15 months ago, he oversaw a deal that exemplified a lack of communication of the highest order. That cannot happen again. He lost a lot of fans the minute Shams tweeted out the trade that sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles, and for those of us who have stuck it out, the acknowledgement that Dumont is the one who gave the go-ahead remains in the back of our minds. Even with the poster boy, Nico Harrison, long gone.

And this lingering concern will be a worry going forward. Dumont will still be the man who signs off on every trade, signing, hiring, and firing. The Mavericks have an unprecedented opportunity for redemption with Cooper Flagg, but Dumont is still the guy who called the NBA Finals the “championship games”, in addition to calling in the disastrous trade. So while hearing him say he wants better communication throughout the organization doesn’t release all of my stress, it does give me a smidge of reassurance that maybe things will be different this time around.

Houston Rockets center Alperen Sengun is continuing to catch strays during the offseason.

The Turkish All-Star just finished his fifth NBA season and the second in a row where the Rockets could not get out of the first round in the playoffs.

The Athletic conducted a league-wide survey asking players various questions about their peers. When asked who the most overrated player in the league is, Sengun received the most votes with 12.3 percent.

“He’s crying every play. He’s talented, but, dude, just play hard,” an anonymous player said.

Sengun, 23, average 20.4 points per game this season, which was a step up from the previous year, but it was not his career-high, which was set back in the 2023-24 campaign. However, he did make his second straight All-Star team.

Sengun’s season was up and down as he was trying to adapt to playing alongside Kevin Durant and find his way around all of that. All things considered, he did a decent jump weathering the storms throughout the year.

While he wasn’t perfect, he was the leader in many victories this season, including five where he scored 30 or more points.

Sengun still has a long way to go as a lot of his potential is untapped. Perhaps this diagnosis of being the league’s most overrated player will fuel him in his offseason preparations.

TDS community, what do you think of Sengun being named the most overrated player in the league? Let your thoughts be known in the comments section below.