The Los Angeles Lakers finally made a long-awaited trade on Monday, sending Kendrick Nunn and three second-round draft picks to the Washington Wizards for Rui Hachimura.
The move comes on the heels of back-to-back impressive wins by the Lakers over the Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trail Blazers as the team looks to get back in postseason contention.
L.A. currently sits at 22-25 but is just two games out of the sixth seed in the Western Conference, making the upcoming stretch of games very important.
While the trade is done with the Lakers announcing the move and welcoming Hachimura to L.A., he isn’t ready to take the court just yet.
The Lakers put out their injury report ahead of Tuesday night’s matchup against the L.A. Clippers and Hachimura is listed as out.
According to Kyle Goon of the Southern California News Group, Hachimura may play on Wednesday against the San Antonio Spurs depending on how quickly he can get to L.A. and get everything else sorted out:
Sounds like Rui Hachimura will be able to play on Wednesday against the Spurs *at the earliest* as he goes through travel to LA, a physical and other logistics of changing teams.
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) January 23, 2023
Getting a player of Hachimura’s caliber while only sending out Nunn and second-round picks was a nice move by the Lakers’ front office. At 6’8″ and 230 pounds, Hachimura gives the Lakers some much-needed size and length on the wing with a lot of potential as a former top-10 pick that’s still just 24 years of age.
With a matchup against Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on the docket for Tuesday night, it would have been ideal to get Hachimura in the lineup at least for a few minutes. There is still plenty of season left to get him acclimated though, so the Japan native will be a welcomed addition whenever he is able to take the floor.
Rest of Lakers injury report
The rest of the injury report was status quo for the Lakers as Anthony Davis, Lonnie Walker IV and Austin Reaves were all ruled out with their respective injuries. They are all making progress and should be back soon, but the Lakers will have to roll with the group that has been playing well as of late on Tuesday against the Clippers.
LeBron James is listed as questionable with ankle soreness although he has been able to play through it in recent weeks and that should be the case again in this one.
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