Los Angeles Lakers megastar Luka Doncic recently picked up his 16th technical foul of the season, conveniently suspending him for LA's Monday game against the lowly Washington Wizards. We're pretty sure the Lakers will survive without Luka against the Wiz.
With seven games remaining for the Lakers following Monday's contest, Luka now has a technical foul to burn before another suspension. The NBA rule of note here is that once you hit 16 techs, you receive a one-game suspension for every two technicals received after that.
Luka Doncic is probably going to get hit with another technical soon
On Monday, ESPN's Brian Windhorst hilariously predicted that Luka will get another tech before the season's up. "I will say, No. 17's definitely coming," Windhorst said during a new episode of his Hoop Collective podcast.
It's worth noting that Luka also took a financial hit for his latest tech-induced suspension, losing approximately $264,000, also known as 1/174th of his salary for the season (per ESPN's Bobby Marks). If you're wondering why 174 is the number here, that is the number of days in the 2025-26 NBA regular season. For a suspension like Luka's, the league fines the player the amount of salary they are making on one day of the regular season, which, in Luka's case, amounts to that $264K.
Once Luka returns to action, it's definitely winning time for LA. The Lakers entered Monday with but a one-game lead over the Denver Nuggets for the three-seed. The remainder of LA's schedule is not meaningless if they have their eyes set on that No. 3 spot in the West.
The Lakers' remaining opponents aren't pushovers, either. After hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena, LA has two games against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder over its last six contests (one home, one away), plus another game against the feisty Phoenix Suns.
Windhorst is totally right -- one of those games is definitely going to draw Luka into a fiery situation in which he gets another T. And if it doesn't happen against Phoenix, OKC, or Cleveland, there's always an April 5 date in Dallas against Luka's former franchise that'll surely raise his blood pressure a bit.
Maybe it's best that Luka does use up one more tech, so that he gets the complaining out of his system before the postseason starts. The Lakers won't have a huge margin of error in the gauntlet that promises to be the West playoffs, so Luka is going to have to reign in the techs
As for now, hopefully Luka's legs are enjoying a rest on Monday as his teammates take care of business against Washington.