Injuries have already started to plague the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2023-24 season as they’ve been without multiple rotation pieces.
Against the Miami Heat, the Lakers were missing Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent and Jaxson Hayes. Anthony Davis also seemed to hurt his hip/groin and though he tried to gut it out, he was ultimately forced out of the game.
With Los Angeles so shorthanded, it’s put more strain on LeBron James to carry the offense and play more minutes than the team would like him to. At 3-4, the Lakers aren’t where fans thought they would be and are hoping that guys get healthy soon.
Prior to their matchup against the Heat, Darvin Ham gave status updates on Jalen Hood-Schifino, Jarred Vanderbilt, Taurean Prince, Hayes and Hachimura, via Khobi Price of the Southern California News Group:
“Jalen Hood, I’ll start with my youngest first, Jalen Hood, he and Vando, they’ve been out the longest and they’re pretty much status quo. Taurean, he’ll be in the lineup tonight. Rui is progressing. He’s still day to day. And Jaxson is dealing with a little tweaked ankle. And we’ll just…obviously, if the circumstances were a little bit more serious and this was later on in the season, we needed him, he could push through. But it’s no need for that. And so, we just want to be proactive and make sure we allow his ankle to calm down a little bit.”
Hachimura was diagnosed with a concussion and Ham explained what he needs to do to clear protocol:
“Just once he gets through his workouts, how he’s feeling post-workout. It’s a process, so he’s there right now.”
As for how the Japan native’s workouts have been so far, Ham said that he’s improving:
“It’s coming along, man. It’s coming along. He’s feeling good about it but still just kind of he has some symptoms a little bit, albeit minor. Still, we want to make sure he’s 100 percent clear in what he’s dealing with before we throw him back out there.”
Hachimura’s absence has been unfortunate for Los Angeles as they were counting on him to provide some scoring punch off the bench. It sounds like he’ll be able to return soon, potentially even this Wednesday against the Houston Rockets.
Darvin Ham explains how Lakers have missed Jarred Vanderbilt defensively
While the Lakers miss Hachimura on the offensive end, the team clearly also needs Vanderbilt defensively. Ham explained that they miss Vanderbilt’s energy and versatility on defense.
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