Luka Doncic may make his long-awaited Los Angeles Lakers debut Saturday, coach JJ Redick mentioned Wednesday.
The Slovenian star took half in his first follow with the Lakers after a blockbuster commerce from Dallas final weekend. Doncic, sidelined since Christmas Day with a left calf pressure, hasn’t performed since his days with the Mavericks.
While he gained’t swimsuit up for Thursday’s showdown in opposition to the Warriors, the reigning NBA scoring champion has a powerful probability to return when the Lakers face the Pacers on Saturday or the Jazz on Monday.
“We’re kind of just assessing it day by day,” Redick mentioned. “We hope to have him back within the next few games. We just had noncontact practice today, but we got some good work in for about 45 minutes, and he’ll have a stay-ready game at some point over the next two days. He’ll have some more opportunities to play live basketball, and then we’ll make a decision on Saturday. If it’s not Saturday, hopefully it’s Monday. (But) those decisions will be made on Saturday.”
The NBA’s broadcasters have been paying consideration: Shortly after Redick spoke, ESPN introduced it might televise the Pacers-Lakers sport Saturday, bumping a Jazz-Suns matchup.
Doncic watched from the bench at Intuit Dome on Tuesday night time whereas LeBron James led a 122-97 blowout of the Clippers for the Lakers’ ninth victory in 11 video games.
James continues to be coming to grips with the commerce of Anthony Davis, his shut good friend and teammate for 5 and a half years, however already sounded enthusiastic about forming a brand new partnership with Doncic, his self-described favourite NBA participant.
Doncic participated in five-on-five work in his first Lakers follow. He ended the exercise on the court docket chatting with Redick, James, assistant coach Scott Brooks and ahead Dorian Finney-Smith, who was Doncic’s teammate in Dallas for 4 and a half seasons. Finney-Smith joined the Lakers shortly after Christmas in a commerce with Brooklyn.
“Even though I don’t like the way things went down – I feel like he definitely should have got that money – but I’m happy he’s on my side now,” Finney-Smith mentioned.
Finney-Smith additionally laughed on the Mavs’ reported considerations about Doncic’s conditioning and weight.
“I know him, (and) he wants to play the whole game,” Finney-Smith mentioned. “I think he played 40 minutes every game last playoffs. That’s one thing about LD. He wants to play. I don’t really look at the noise. I look at his production. If I’m putting up those kinds of numbers, maybe I should be 270 (pounds).”
Whenever Doncic will get again on the court docket, Redick doesn’t assume he could have many issues adjusting to enjoying alongside James within the Lakers’ schemes on each ends.
“The biggest learning curve is just the language,” Redick mentioned. “He knows basketball. He knows it at a high level. We use a lot of the concepts that he used in Dallas, which a lot of teams use. We haven’t reinvented the wheel or anything. We are trending in the direction of playing really intelligent offensive basketball, and then you add in Luka, who’s a supercomputer on the court, who can see everything and has seen every coverage, every defense. It adds another layer for sure.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com