LeBron James and Anthony Davis aren’t the only Los Angeles Lakers players that have looked good in the 2024 Olympics in Paris as Rui Hachimura has been leading the way for Team Japan.
Hachimura had led his team in scoring in both games so far, and that is despite being ejected in the third quarter against France. He had 24 points before the ejection, scoring in a variety of ways to put his team in position to upset the host nation.
It appears that Hachimura’s tournament is over, however, as the Japan team announced that he felt discomfort in his calf fallowing the 94-90 overtime loss to France on Tuesday. Hachimura received an MRI confirming an injury to his gastrocnemius muscle and has since left the team.
“As my injury required early treatment, I was unfortunately unable to accompany the team in accordance with NBA/FIBA rules,” Hachimura said in a statement. “I would like to thank all the spectators who supported me at the venue, basketball fans around the world, and all the fans in Japan. I think that together with my teammates, we played a very good game for Japanese basketball. I am proud to have been able to play as a member of Akatsuki Japan.”
Suffering an injury is obviously never ideal, and that is especially the case when it occurs during international play and not an NBA game for the Lakers.
It remains to be seen how serious the injury is for Hachimura, but he hurt it enough to not be able to play the rest of the Olympics so there seems to be some level of concern there. The Lakers don’t open training camp until the end of September though, which means that Hachimura will have two months to get back to 100%.
Opening Night is almost three months away so even if the forward is not ready for the start of training camp, he should have plenty of time to get right.
JJ Redick wants Rui Hachimura to shoot more 3-pointers and crash glass
After looking great for Japan in the Olympics before the injury, the hope is that Rui Hachimura will be able to take the next step and be even better for the Lakers in 2024-25. In order to do that, new head coach JJ Redick emphasized that he needs to shoot more 3-pointers and crash the offensive glass for L.A.
“I thought he had a fantastic year last year,” Redick said. “One of the things that maybe I should have mentioned this to Ramona’s question, but beyond just the Lakers and LeBron and Anthony Davis, I’m excited about some of the younger guys on this roster and helping them. I had great conversations this weekend, two that I loved were my conversations with Austin and my conversation with Rui. I think for him in terms of how I envision him on this team, I want him shooting more 3s. So, that’s a big part of it. I brought up the offensive rebounding, I think he can really become an elite offensive rebounder.
“As we build out our offensive system and how we’re going to play, when we incorporate moving and cutting, Rui can be an excellent cutter and part of that is because we’re going to manipulate screening angles, he’s going to get mismatches and he can really score the basket if he has smaller players on him.”
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