There was a ton of excitement surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers going into their game Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Bucks as it marked the debut of center Andre Drummond, who they recently signed off the buyout market.
Unfortunately, that excitement was short-lived as Drummond was stepped on by Brook Lopez early in the game, causing the entire nail on his right big toe to come off.
While Drummond attempted to return to the game in the third quarter, he only stayed in for two minutes before being forced to leave the game for good, eventually being diagnosed with a toe contusion after X-rays came back negative.
The Lakers did not give a timetable for how long Drummond will be out, but it appears it will not be that long. According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Drummond should only miss the next game or two:
There is optimism that Lakers center Andre Drummond will not miss more than a game or two with his right big toe injury, sources told @wojespn and me. L.A. plays at Sacramento on Friday, then the Clippers in L.A. on Sunday before embarking on a five-game East Coast road trip
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) April 1, 2021
This is certainly good news for the Lakers, who have been hampered by injuries all season and are currently without both of their two stars in LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Drummond immediately entered the starting lineup in his Lakers debut, but now that he is out, Frank Vogel will likely go back to Marc Gasol. While Gasol played six minutes in the loss to the Bucks, they all came in the fourth quarter after Drummond had left due to the injury.
The Lakers will take on a hot Sacramento Kings team on Friday night before returning to L.A. to play the Clippers on Sunday. They then go out on a five-game road trip that features some difficult opponents, so getting Drummond back for that would be nice.
One thing that is for sure is that Drummond will miss the game against the Kings as the team announced that he did not make the trip up to Sacramento.
Drummond happy to avoid serious injury
After the loss to the Bucks, Drummond admitted that he was dealing with a great amount of pain, which comes as no surprise considering his entire toenail was ripped off.
He did take a positive away from the situation though after finding out the injury is not serious.
“I was definitely very happy to see that it was a negative result on the X-ray, so it’s just a day by day. Icing it and taking care of it making sure I get it wrapped up and seal the missing toenail that’s not there.”
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