Rui Hachimura was forced to leave the Los Angeles Lakers’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans after suffering a left calf strain in the first quarter.
Hachimura was inserted into the starting lineup after Cam Reddish was ruled out, but did not get much run as he only managed to play eight minutes. Hachimura scored four points to go along with one rebounds, one assist and one steal.
Los Angeles has had to juggle lineups almost for the entirety of the 2023-24 season due to injury, and this recent development came at a poor time. The Lakers were playing on the second night of a back-to-back and needed a win to help regain some momentum for the season.
However, L.A. wound up losing to New Orleans as they failed to generate any sort of meaningful run in the second half. The lack of depth on the wings really showed as head coach Darvin Ham was forced to play Austin Reaves and Max Christie more minutes than usual.
The loss dropped the Lakers back to .500 on the season, but the obvious concern is Hachimura’s health as calf strains can keep players sidelined for weeks depending on the severity. Ham admitted that he and the team have initial concern since Hachimura was ruled out so quickly, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Obviously when you lose a player that early in the game and he’s not able to return, the concern level is at a high, high level. But we don’t want to jump to any conclusions. We’ll let him go through the process with our medical team and go from there.”
Normally players are tagged as questionable to return when they exit a game, but Hachimura’s quick exit does seem to indicate that the injury is at least somewhat severe although according to Dan Woike of the L.A. Times, it may not be too serious:
Some further context here after we spent time in the locker room. Word is that Hachimura's removal from the game was more cautionary and that he'll be re-evaluated in Los Angeles. I saw him walking some and he didn't have a pronounced limp or anything like that. https://t.co/dJnzqf5uZc
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) January 1, 2024
Hachimura has already missed time this season after suffering a nasal fracture, but the calf strain could put him back on the sidelines for multiple weeks.
There isn’t a lot going right for the Lakers, so the team will just have to hope that Hachimura isn’t forced to miss too much time.
Darvin Ham: Lakers have to live with loss to Timberwolves despite tough call
Ham’s seat gets hotter after every loss, but it was hard to blame him after Los Angeles lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves given the replay review on a LeBron James 3-pointer.
James’ three was ruled a 2-pointer and Ham said he and the Lakers had no choice but to live with the result.
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