Anthony Davis took a hard fall in the Los Angeles Lakers blowout win over the New York Knicks on Jan. 7.
The injury looked very serious at the time as Davis struggled to get off the court and walk to the locker room on his own power. It was also almost immediately announced that Davis would miss the team’s subsequent two-game road trip.
In total, Davis has now missed three games and will miss a fourth when the Lakers take on the Orlando Magic. The Lakers have gone 3-0 in his absence, but would obviously prefer to get him back sooner rather than later. The hope is that the injury isn’t quite as bad as initially thought but with the amount of games already missed, it’s starting to look that bad.
Davis spoke about his injury and wanted to avoid speculation over how bad it was, according to Tania Ganguli of Los Angeles Times:
“It was very painful,” he said. “Hard for me to walk obviously. It was pretty tough for me to just roll over on my back and on my side at the initial point of contact. It was tough. I didn’t want any speculation, but I was just praying that it wasn’t anything too serious.”
When it comes to his return, Davis said he’ll come back when he feels like he can do all the same moves he was able to do prior to his injury, which leaves the door open for missing a decent amount of time:
“When I feel like I’m able to get back to my old self and do the moves I’ve always done and be successful at it, that’s when I’ll be able to get back on the floor,” Davis said.
The Lakers should hope for a return from Davis soon as their schedule is about to get a lot tougher. After their home game against the Magic, the Lakers head on the road for a five-game trip where they play the Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets, and Philadelphia 76ers — with the Knicks and Nets being on back-to-back nights.
If that isn’t bad enough, they’ll then return home to play the Los Angeles Clippers. The Lakers can survive not having Davis for a little while, but they could suffer some brutal losses on this trip if he can’t come back soon.
Health obviously is the most important thing, so the Lakers just have to pray that Davis can feel like himself in time for the bulk of this harsh stretch of schedule.