The Los Angeles Lakers recently announced that rookie guard Jalen Hood-Schifino is progressing in his injury recovery and is beginning the next stages of his return to play plan. He was then upgraded to questionable for Sunday’s game against the Houston Rockets.
Although it remains unclear what type of role Hood-Schifino will play in head coach Darvin Ham’s rotation, getting him back is another step towards a fully healthy roster.
But due to his rookie status and the fact that his place in the rotation is unclear, it appears Hood-Schifino will do much of his recovery and return to game shape with the South Bay Lakers of the G League. South Bay provides Hood-Schifino with a chance to get some real reps to expedite his return to game shape as opposed to staying with the Lakers who rarely practice due to the demand of the NBA schedule.
Ham spoke about Hood-Schifino’s progress and what role South Bay and some of the players on the Lakers will play in getting him ready for his return to play and his NBA debut, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“I think our G League system will help with that process. It’s just about him getting in tune with getting his game legs back under him and going up and down against competition. Once we get to that point, like I said our G League, that’s what that part of the program is for with each and every team. Not only to discover new, up and coming talent, but also try to maintain and have maintenance availability for your current young guys. Between us and South Bay, I think he’ll get brought up to speed pretty quickly.”
Ham went into greater detail on what the goal of the next few weeks is for the young rookie and how players are going to help him get to that point.
“Yeah I mean, our stay ready group, the low-to-no minute guys, our South Bay team. The biggest thing is to try and help him get into a rhythm. It’s already a lot of challenges with him being a rookie, let alone that. I’m not worried, he’s a smart kid, he absorbs information well, and again we have that segment of our program — South Bay — that’s going to assist us along with our stay ready group that’ll help bring him up to speed.”
It’s difficult to integrate a player into a system when their injury happened during the preseason and they have yet to play a regular season game. However, it’s especially difficult when that player is a rookie and has never seen NBA action.
For now, the Lakers are going to lean on South Bay and that aspect of their organization to get Hood-Schifino up to speed, then L.A. will make a determination from there. The rookie can use some reps in the G League regardless to help with his development considering he won’t get much playing time at the NBA level regardless, so this seems like a good plan in place for the Lakers.
Gabe Vincent to be re-evaluated in two weeks
After a few weeks of silence, Gabe Vincent was finally re-evaluated this week and the Lakers announced that he will be re-evaluated again in two more weeks, which would be Nov. 30. The Lakers added that Vincent is progressing in his rehabilitation.
While Vincent will still miss some more time, it’s good to see that he is making progress towards a return for L.A.
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