Lakers’ Luka Doncic hit with dreaded Joel Embiid label by Kendrick Perkins

Recently, the Los Angeles Lakers' 2025-26 season came to a tough end with a Game 4 loss at home to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of the NBA playoffs. The Lakers went through this whole postseason run without Luka Doncic, who was dealing with a hamstring injury.Now, former NBA big man and current ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins has dropped a hot take on a concern he has for Doncic moving forward.“Luka is starting to get in that territory of Joel Embiid. When you need him the most, and it comes postseason time, he's not available,” said Perkins, per First Take on X, formerly Twitter.Outside of this postseason with the hamstring injury, it's unclear exactly what Perkins is referring to with this remark. Doncic has been hobbled a bit in past postseasons and did miss some time at the beginning of the Dallas Mavericks' 2022 postseason run, but for the most part, he has been quite durable in his NBA tenure, not remotely approaching the territory of Embiid, who has not made it through a postseason run fully healthy a single time in his career.Still, Lakers fans will be hoping that the hamstring injury was just a blip on the radar and not a sign of something more serious to come for the MVP candidate.In the meantime, Los Angeles has some big questions to answer this summer, including what the future holds for LeBron James. James has spent eight seasons in the purple and gold but can hit free agency this summer, with some predicting that a return to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, or a team-up with Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, could be on the horizon.Priority number one for the Lakers is building around Doncic at all costs.Recently, the Los Angeles Lakers' 2025-26 season came to a tough end with a Game 4 loss at home to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of the NBA playoffs. The Lakers went through this whole postseason run without Luka Doncic, who was dealing with a hamstring injury.