PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- The Los Angeles Lakers are being extra cautious around leading star Luka Dončić, who will be sidelined against the Suns on Friday at Acrisure Arena and Sunday against the Warriors in San Francisco for their first two games of the preseason.
The not-so-surprising move comes due to the workload the 26-year-old star had this offseason representing his Slovenian national team at EuroBasket, where he played 233 minutes in seven games, which put him at an average of 33 minutes per game.
Dončić was one of the players mentioned after Thursday's practice, along with Austin Reaves, of monitoring and being "sensitive" toward when it came to the workload from the offseason and training camp.
Redick has still not given any indication of his starting lineup, but plans to have a short stint of minutes for players to get going and rotate his bench in. He gets to tweak his starting unit more with their top two players out and a pivotal rotation player in Marcus Smart, who is out with an Achilles injury.
"We're going to try and play these guys in shorter bursts. So they can focus on pace and sprinting back... getting new guys in and having them do the same thing," Redick said after Thursday's practice. "I don’t think guys are going to play for eight to ten minutes at a time. Whatever the rotation ends up being for those first three and a half quarters,
The Lakers will be without Dončić and LeBron James (glute) against the Suns, along with Smart, Maxi Kleber (quad) and Adou Thiero (knee swelling).