The news continues to get worse for the Los Angeles Lakers in the injury department with Pau Gasol potentially out much longer than one game with tendinitis in both knees according to head coach Mike D’Antoni via ESPN’s Dave McMenamin:
“We got to get him healthy,” D’Antoni said. “Whatever it takes — one game, two games, 10 games — I don’t know. It’s day to day but he’s got to be healthy. It wasn’t fair (to him). He’s trying to battle through some stuff and in this league, you just can’t do that.”
Another interesting twist to Gasol’s current situation with the Lakers is all the trade speculation surrounding him once again.
Reportedly, the Lakers’ front office have let the two-time NBA champion know that he’ll be on the trading block if he can’t adjust to the new system via McMenamin:
Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak has recently spoken to Gasol’s representatives and the gist of the conversation was that if Gasol is unable to adjust to D’Antoni’s system, the team will have no choice but to search for possible trade scenarios.
Gasol’s future in Los Angeles remains up in the air moving forward with a trade potentially around the corner if he can’t figure out how to adjust to D’Antoni’s style.
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With Steve Blake out up to two months and Steve Nash still on the shelf without a set timetable, the Lakers continue to be ravaged by injuries moving forward as this team struggles to come together under D’Antoni.
The Lakers will embark on a three-game road trip starting with the Houston Rockets on Tuesday followed by the first meeting with the New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday. The road trip will wrap up with the first head-to-head showdown of the season with Kevin Durant’s Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night.
Without Gasol, Blake and Nash in the lineup, the Lakers will face perhaps the toughest road trip of the season thus far. Although the Rockets and Hornets aren’t exactly top tier teams at this point, Los Angeles has struggled against the majority of their opponents regardless of their records. Friday’s game against the Thunder will be highly anticipated and a solid assessment of the team’s progress so far.
It’ll be interesting to see the impact of changes made by D’Antoni over the course of the next three games on the road with Antawn Jamison filling in for Gasol and Chris Duhon taking over as the starting point guard.
