It’s not clear if Luka Doncic will be able to play when the Mavericks play the Spurs on Wednesday. He has a calf pain and needs to heal.

NEW ORLEANS — With only four days left in the season, there are still a lot more questions than answers about Luka Doncic’s health for the Dallas Mavericks’ first game on October 25 against the San Antonio Spurs. He is still getting better from what was called a mild left calf strain.

Before the Mavs beat the Pistons 114–104 in a preseason game on Friday, coach Jason Kidd said there was no present plan for when Doncic would return. In the messages, it was said that the team would need to wait until the weekend to find out more.

Kidd said, “We don’t have a schedule yet.” “He’s still being checked out, and in a week we’ll see how he feels.”

The message didn’t change after Kidd talked to reporters after practice on Saturday. Doncic is still making progress with his recovery work on the court, but he hasn’t been able to fully join in practice.

“He continues to do on-court work and is progressing,” Kidd told me. “My hope is that he resumes practicing next week, but we’ll see where we are after the weekend.” 

Doncic hurt his calf during a workout for the Mavericks at Real Madrid City on October 9. This was the day before they lost an exhibition game at WiZink Center to Real Madrid. Reporters were told it was “nothing serious” because he only played for less than five minutes. After the team got back from its 12-day foreign preseason trip, he had an MRI. 

It was just my leg that hurt yesterday during practice, Doncic said in Madrid. “You know, they don’t want to make things worse.” “You know me, I wish I had played for 40 minutes but couldn’t. I tried to talk to the front desk staff.”

The Mavs beat the Pistons 114–104 in the preseason, and Kyrie Irving and Josh Green played. The team is still worried about Jaden Hardy’s injury. Similar to Doncic, the second-year guard hurt his ankle on Thursday. The team hopes he will be able to train next week, but they don’t know for sure yet.

The Mavs are still determined to play faster. It’s been a big part of training for the past week, and it showed against the Pistons. While Doncic was out, the team used units with a lot of speed and defensive versatility. They also liked getting the ball up the court quickly and often started plays with dribble handoffs.

“If you look at how we’ve been talking about speed… For the first time in a while, the people got to see us play fast. I wanted them to see that we could score 40 points in the first quarter and then come back in the third with almost the same mindset. That was a good way to start group play.

Since the team is off on Sunday, the first time we’ll hear anything new about Doncic and Hardy’s injuries will be on Monday.