The Los Angeles Lakers held their first practice of training camp on Tuesday, but unfortunately not everyone was able to participate fully.
Lakers head coach JJ Redick revealed after practice that LeBron James, Marcus Smart, Gabe Vincent and Adou Thiero all missed parts due to injury.
“LeBron, Marcus, Gabe and Adou are all sort of either under return-to-play protocols or modified protocols,” Redick said.
James, in particular, is someone the Lakers are being cautious with as he enters his 23rd season. Redick said James is dealing a minor glute injury and the team will not rush him back to avoid it being a bigger problem.
“It’s probably a little bit longer of a ramp-up leading into Opening Night,” Redick said. “Obviously in Year 23, uncharted territory here. I felt, and in talking with the performance (staff) and LeBron, he probably did too much last year in camp. Which was great for me as a first-year head coach to get buy-in from him. But it will be a slower process with him leading into the first game. He’s obviously got 22 years so far of wear and tear on the body and he’s dealing with a little bit of nerve irritation in the glute. So we’re playing the long-game with LeBron.”
With Smart, Vincent and Thiero though, Redick was less concerned about their statuses moving forward.
“Gabe, he’s just modified. He should be good to go live by the end of the week and we expect him to be able to play on Friday. And that’s just the management of his knee that we did last year as well,” Redick said. “Marcus is just dealing with a little bit of Achilles tendinopathy. He’s been in a slow ramp up and was a modified participant in live today. We expect him to be fine by next week. And then Adou, I think he gave you guys all the information himself yesterday.”
Obviously you never want to begin camp with players already injured, but it seems the Lakers are more just being cautious this early. The first preseason game is on Friday though, so it will be interesting to see who is able to suit up to get some much-needed reps as this team looks to build chemistry.
LeBron James discusses plans for Lakers training camp
While LeBron James continues to play at a high level when on the court, he also has a ton of miles on his body after 22 seasons and he has been dealing with some nagging injuries over the past couple years, including an MCL sprain in the Lakers’ final game last season.
Managing things throughout the season will be crucial to James’ performance this season and he spoke about how much he expects to participate during training camp before JJ Redick went further in depth on the plan.
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