Luka Doncic’s injury scare over the weekend fortunately appears to have been just a scare.
The Los Angeles Lakers star Doncic was playing on Saturday for his native Slovenia in a EuroBasket exhibition game against Latvia. During the third quarter of the contest, Slovenia’s Gregor Horvat was defending on the perimeter when he went flying into the paint area.
Horvat crashed right into his teammate Doncic, who was standing stationary under the basket. Doncic immediately began cursing and hobbled off in pain, seemingly favoring his right leg. Here is the video of the play (after which Doncic exited the game and went to the locker room).
Luka Doncic’s teammate fell into him and the Lakers star appeared to injure his knee.
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) August 16, 2025
Doncic asked out of the game and went back to the Slovenia locker room. pic.twitter.com/RLSDjpeQkS
After the game, which Slovenia went on to lose to Latvia 100-88, an update emerged on Doncic’s status. Dan Woike of The Athletic reported that Doncic “avoided any serious injury” on the play.
The 26-year-old Doncic just landed a mammoth new contract extension this offseason from the Lakers, who are committed to building around him for many years to come as their franchise centerpiece. Doncic has also been drawing rave reviews this summer for his vastly improved physical condition.
Training camp begins for the Lakers in just over a month, and now they will be hoping that Doncic’s injury (even if it isn’t serious) does not affect his offseason timeline any. Slovenia has two exhibition games left before the official EuroBasket competition begins (featuring five group-stage games and more if they advance to the knockout stage). Given that incident on Saturday though, it seems to be completely up in the air whether Doncic participates in any remaining EuroBasket games this summer for his native country.
