The Los Angeles Lakers announced on Sunday morning that veteran point guard Rajon Rondo has been placed in the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
Rajon joins Austin Reaves, Kenta Bazemore and Trevor Ariza, who are also currently out due to protocols.
The last month has been absolutely brutal for the Lakers and other teams across the league as almost the whole roster has entered health and safety protocols at some point.
Currently, the only players that haven’t are Anthony Davis, Carmelo Anthony, Wayne Ellington and DeAndre Jordan.
Luckily though, the Lakers are starting to get a bunch of players back as Talen Horton-Tucker, Dwight Howard, Malik Monk and Avery Bradley have all exited protocols in the last week.
Also, under the NBA’s new rules they have been able to sign some replacement players to 10-day contracts via the Hardship Exception. The Lakers have added Isaiah Thomas, Jemerrio Jones, Stanley Johnson and Darren Collison in recent days and all have seen immediate playing time during the team’s recent five-game losing streak.
Since Thomas’ 10-day contract is set to expire before the Lakers take the court next, the expectation was that his time with the team would be coming to an end. But now with Rondo entering protocols and the team down another point guard, it’s possible that Thomas gets another 10 days with the team.
Even though Rondo hasn’t played a bunch this season, his veteran presence on the bench and in the locker room has been invaluable, so that is something the Lakers will be missing over the next week or so when he is away from the team.
Monk wanted to prove he was ‘back’ in return from protocols
One of the players the Lakers got back for their Christmas game against the Brooklyn Nets was Monk and he immediately made his presence felt with 20 games off the bench.
After the loss, he discussed what he was trying to prove in his return.
“That’s a good question. Shit, that I’m back (laughs). That’s really it, man. That I’m here,” the guard said.
“Just to get to the rim. I tried to create for others, too. We had a little misunderstanding on what we was doing on the offensive end. I felt like the ball wasn’t moving enough and I tried to come in and get to the rim and try to just mix everything thing up.”
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