This season has been a lot similar to the last for the Los Angeles Lakers as far as injuries go as LeBron James and Anthony Davis have both missed significant time to this point.
While James is currently healthy and playing some of the best basketball of his career, the Lakers have been without Davis since he suffered a sprain MCL in his left knee in the loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Dec. 17.
Prior to the injury, Davis appeared in 27 games and averaged 23.3 points, 9.9 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.0 blocks while shooting 52.1 percent from the field.
Davis was given an original timetable of four weeks before being re-evaluated, and it is almost reaching that point. For the first time since his injury, Davis was seen getting some shots up before the Lakers’ game against the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday night, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
Anthony Davis warming up with a bulky brace on his left knee. He sprained the MCL in his left knee just more than three weeks ago in Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/BD8rj4UclB
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 10, 2022
Even though Davis was getting some light shooting in, head coach Frank Vogel was not yet willing to give an official update on him after the game.
“The only thing we’re saying about AD is that we’ll have an update after four weeks, but he has been doing some shooting,” Vogel said.
Given Davis’ extensive injury history, there’s no doubt that the Lakers will be cautious in bringing him back to ensure he is 100% for the back half of the season.
Prior to Sunday’s loss to the Grizzlies, the Lakers have been playing some good basketball as of late without Davis, so getting him back whenever he is healthy should only help even more.
Vogel expects Nunn to get a lot of minutes upon return
Another injured player on the Lakers who is close to returning is Kendrick Nunn, who has yet to make his debut this season due to a bone bruise in his knee.
Vogel recently revealed that he expects Nunn to get a lot of minutes whenever he returns in order to see how he fits in with this group.
“I have an idea, but it’s all still to be played out,” the head coach said. “Kendrick is going to get a ton of minutes when he gets back healthy. It’s going to be at the expense of somebody else at least for that time being to see how he fits in our system along with our stars and all that stuff will play out, so I have a general idea but a lot of it is still to be determined.”
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