The next time Luka Doncic is seen playing in a basketball game will have to wait until the fall – not the summer like is customary for the Lakers superstar.
Less than 30 minutes after the Lakers 2025-26 season ended with their Game 4 loss to the Thunder in the second round of the playoffs, Doncic announced on his Instagram story that he won’t be playing for the Slovenian national team this summer so he can focus on spending time with his daughters.
Doncic, who made the announcement in English and Slovenian, is in the midst of a custody battle for his two daughters (Gabriela, 3 years old, and Olivia, five months old) with his ex-fianceé Anamaria Goltes.
The Lakers star announced in March that he and Goltes had separated.
Goltes filed a petition for child support from Doncic in Los Angeles in the same month. Doncic filed an order to dismiss the petition later in March. His famed attorney, Laura Wasser, cited none of the parties are residents of California, and that Doncic previously filed a “Family Law action” in February in Slovenia to address the situation.
The court postponed the hearing date for the child custody battle until Aug. 14.
“I love my daughters more than anything, and they will alway come first in my life,” Doncic wrote in a statement. “As I continue working toward joint custody of my daughters, I have been forced to make a difficult deciison between traveling and playing for the Slovenian national team and being with my daughters this summers. Unfortunately, it has been made extremely difficult for me to see them over the past eight months.”
This summer will be the first time since 2020 – when the Olympics were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic – that Doncic doesn’t play for Slovenia.
The summer of 2019, which was after his rookie season with the Mavericks, was the last time the Slovenian national team played without Doncic.
He made his Slovenian national team debut during EuroBasket 2017, in which Slovenia won its first goal medal after going undefeated in the tournament.
“I have given everything to representing Slovenia and I am disappointed that I will not be able to play for my country this summer,” Doncic said. “But right now, my daughters and my responsibilities as a father are my priority.”
Doncic hasn’t played since suffering a left hamstring strain on April 2, sidelining him for the final five games of the Lakers’ regular season, the six-game first round victory over the Rockets and the four-game sweep to the Thunder.
Originally, the injury was expected to have a recovery timeline of four to six weeks, but Doncic said he was told eight weeks.
Thursday will mark six weeks since the injury happened.
“I know some people wanted me back, but obviously I wasn’t close to clearing,” Doncic said. “There was some stuff in the media that went out that wasn’t true. [None] of those people saw my MRIs or nothing, so it wasn’t really true. If I could be out there, I would be, 100%.”
Doncic has started lifting weights, running and shooting as part of his return-to-the-court process.
He expects to be cleared for contact work in the “next week or two, probably.”
“First of all, I want to spend time with my daughters, and that’s probably the only thing that’s on my mind right now,” Doncic responded when asked what an ideal summer looks like for him. “And second of all, obviously, get the work in and come back ready for the [2026-27] season.”
