Ric Flair continues to take shots at Luka Doncic while praising LeBron James

Ric Flair praised Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James on social media on Thursday while also appearing to take a shot at Luka Doncic, who has been ruled out for Game 2 against the Oklahoma City Thunder with a hamstring injury.

This isn’t the first time that Flair has gone on social media to take a shot at Doncic for not suiting up while dealing with this injury. Doncic went down in early April in a regular-season game against the Thunder, and he has not played for the Lakers since.

Despite that, Flair has sent out multiple tweets calling for the star guard to play through the hamstring injury in the playoffs.

While Flair is entitled to his opinion, Doncic recently revealed that the original timeline for his return from his injury was set at eight weeks. That means he has multiple weeks remaining in his recovery process before he’s expected to return.

The Lakers would love to have Doncic on the floor in the playoffs, but it doesn’t make sense for them to risk his long-term health by playing him when he’s still clearly injured.

Even with Doncic sidelined, the Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs with James leading the way. Austin Reaves (oblique) returned for the final two games of that series, but James, Luke Kennard and Marcus Smart guided Los Angeles to a 3-0 series lead before the team won the series in six games.

James also had a big showing in Game 1 against Oklahoma City, scoring 27 points on 12-of-17 shooting (3-for-6 from 3). He also added four rebounds and six assists in the 108-90 loss.

The Lakers have failed to score 100 points in each of their last four playoff games, and it’s clear that the absence of Doncic has limited the team’s ceiling.

During the regular season, Doncic appeared in 64 games and averaged 33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game while shooting 47.6 percent from the field and 36.6 percent from 3-point range.

It’s unclear if Doncic will be able to return in this series, which means James and Reaves are going to need to carry a major load in Game 2 and beyond. Reaves has to play at a higher level after he shot just 3-for-16 in Game 1 of this series with OKC.