The injury bug has hit the Los Angeles Lakers all season and that continued on Thursday night when Jarred Vanderbilt was forced to leave the game against the Boston Celtics with a right foot injury.
The injury came at an unfortunate time considering LeBron James and Anthony Davis were also ruled out from the game. Vanderbilt, who has playing some of his best basketball of the season in recent weeks, entered the starting lineup and was everywhere for his team with 10 points, seven rebounds, two assists and three steals in 16 minutes.
While the injury didn’t look great, the Lakers announced after the game that X-rays came back negative on Vanderbilt’s right foot. That rules out a fracture and some other significant injuries although he will likely still need to undergo further testing to determine the exact severity.
Lakers head coach Darvin Ham was asked about Vanderbilt’s injury after the game and while he didn’t have an update, he recognized that this has been a common theme for the Lakers while also shouting out the forward for his play before going down, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“It’s been the story of our season. The story of our season. Obviously we’re coming into a game without LeBron and AD already, don’t have Cam, don’t have Gabe, so we just said you know what, we’re just gonna throw these eight guys out there and fight the good fight and he sets a tone like that, an unbelievable tone, and then he’s down. Just got to navigate through it all… Hopefully it’s not serious and he’ll be able to get right back to it, but great win nonetheless. We need one of these.”
The hope is that Vanderbilt is not forced to miss long-term action as he has been key for the Lakers recently, especially on the defensive end of the floor.
Vanderbilt missed the first couple of months of the season with a left heel injury that has continued to bug him even since returning. This is a right foot injury, so Vanderbilt will now need to manage both of his feet moving forward, which certainly isn’t ideal.
Jarred Vanderbilt believes Lakers are starting to turn corner
Even though they had a recent setback on their road trip with injuries playing a part, Jarred Vanderbilt has sensed recently that the Lakers are starting to turn the corner as a team.
“I think we have a special group here. We’re starting to turn that corner at the right time I feel like.”
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