Injuries have been an issue for the Los Angeles Lakers all season. Nearly every rotation player has missed at least some time due to injury with some of those missing significant time.
One of those players was point guard D’Angelo Russell who missed 13 games due to knee issues and needing a PRP injection in that knee. Now the Lakers will be without Russell again.
After injuring himself early in Friday night’s win over the Indiana Pacers, Russell was diagnosed with a mild MCL sprain. Now the Lakers have announced that he will be out 1-2 weeks:
Russell's MRI confirmed a mild MCL sprain in his R knee & a calf strain, and also showed a bone bruise. Out 1-2 weeks, re-evaluated in 1 wk.
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) January 22, 2017
Russell did not travel with the team to Dallas so his status for that game was already known. Now he and the team have an idea of how long he will be out and while it isn’t ideal, it isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
The Lakers struggled without Russell the first time and unfortunately for the Lakers they will again have the majority of their games on the road while Russell is down. 10 of the Lakers’ next 12 games are away from Staples Center including their next three. If Russell was to miss the two weeks that would keep him out around six games.
Once again this injury comes at a bad time for the Lakers as they were just about to be back at full strength for the first time since the beginning of the season. Larry Nance Jr. has just been cleared to return and will play limited minutes in Dallas tomorrow, but now someone else has gone down.
This season Russell is averaging 14.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 1.2 steals while shooting 39.6 percent from the field and 34.6 percent from three-point range.
