The Los Angeles Lakers released their injury report for Thursday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks and Luka Doncic (left hamstring strain) is out while Deandre Ayton (right knee soreness) is questionable.
LeBron James, Austin Reaves and Marcus Smart are all not on the injury report so will be good to go after sitting out Tuesday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs in the second night of a back-to-back.
This is the Lakers’ final game before the All-Star break, so they will continue to be cautious with Doncic, who has missed the last three games with the hamstring injury. With Doncic not suit up against his former team, he could get eight more days to rest before the Lakers take the court again to begin the second half.
Doncic did make the All-Star team and according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, he is still hoping to play if he feels healthy enough:
Luka Doncic (hamstring strain) will not play against Dallas on Thursday, missing his fourth straight game, sources told ESPN. He is still progressing in his rehab and hopes to be able to make an appearance in Sunday’s All-Star game for the World Team, sources said.
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) February 12, 2026
With the Lakers in a tight playoff race, hopefully Doncic will prioritize getting healthy for the second half. If he does play in the All-Star Game though, it likely would only be a handful of minutes for the World team.
The Lakers are hoping to head into the All-Star break on a high note against the Mavericks after dropping their last two games. With some key players potentially out of the lineup in Doncic and Ayton, others will need to step up to make up for that absence, which has been the case for L.A. all year long.
Doncic has played extremely well against the Mavericks since they traded him last year, averaging 33 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists in fourth games.
JJ Redick: Lakers happy to sign Kobe Bufkin
One player who will see extended minutes whenever key Lakers players are out is Kobe Bufkin, who recently signed a two-year contract with the team after thriving in the G League.
JJ Redick recently spoke about why the Lakers decided to sign Bufkin instead of a buyout player and how happy they are to have him.
“There’s a lot of factors that go into that, you know, the buyout market, I’ll just be frank because I did this when I was working in media, very rarely produces a player that impacts a team’s playoff chances. It just — it very rarely does,” Redick said. “The second part of that is you gotta make sure if you get a buyout player, you gotta make sure that guy is healthy, ready to play. Kobe has certainly earned a spot in the NBA with the way he’s played this year for us in South Bay. There’s also factors of are we going to be able to keep him in our program? So there’s a lot that went into it. We feel really happy that we got him on a roster spot.”
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