The Los Angeles Lakers released their injury report for Tuesday night’s game against the L.A. Clippers and LeBron James (left ankle peroneal tendinopathy) has been ruled out.
Additionally, Jarred Vanderbilt (left heel bursitis) and Anthony Davis (bilateral Achilles tendinopathy) are listed as probable while Taurean Prince are Cam Reddish off the injury report.
All four of Reddish, Vanderbilt, James and Davis were able to play in Sunday night’s win over the Portland Trail Blazers and with the game being a blowout, head coach Darvin Ham was able to ease the workload of his key guys to ensure they stay fresh moving forward.
James’ ankle appears to be bothering him, however, so he will not be able to go on Tuesday night against the Clippers. LeBron is only missing his fifth game of the season, but the hope is that it won’t be an extended absence with some crucial games coming up on the schedule.
Prince is returning to the lineup after not being able to play against Portland, sitting out with the knee issue. Prince has played in 41 games and is averaging a career-high 30.6 minutes per game, which is where the knee soreness came from.
Ham revealed that the knee had been giving Prince issues for a while so they wanted to give him a night off to rest.
“He’s been fighting through some pain for some time now so we just wanted to try to get in front of it and give him a night to calm it down a little bit,” Ham said.
Given the absence of James and how much scoring the Clippers have on the wing, it will be good to get Prince’s 3-and-D ability back in the lineup.
Prince is averaging 9.8 points per game for the Lakers this season while shooting 38.7% from 3-point range on 5.5 attempts per game.
LeBron James not willing to discuss Lakers potential trade deadline moves
With the NBA trade deadline just around the corner and the Lakers sitting at .500 on the season, a lot of conversations have been going on about what the organization can do to upgrade the roster.
When James was asked about potential moves, however, he was not willing to discuss it.
“I don’t play fantasy basketball. What I do is focus on the guys that’s here in this uniform and show up to work every day. It’s too disrespectful to be thinking about what we need or what we don’t have. I don’t do that to my teammates,” James said. “We’ve been putting in the work and that’s what we got to continue to do. We like the way we’ve been playing the last couple of games.”
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