Hampered by knee and leg injuries earlier in his NBA career, Lakers center Brook Lopez has been relatively healthy in recent years, having not missed more than 10 games in a season since 2013/14. However, that streak appears to be in jeopardy.
Lopez left Monday’s game with an ankle injury, and has been diagnosed with a moderate ankle sprain, the team announced today in a press release. According to the Lakers, Lopez will be reevaluated in three weeks, so he’ll be sidelined until sometime in the new year.
X-rays on Lopez’s injured ankle were negative, and an MRI confirmed that the veteran big man isn’t dealing with a more serious injury, but it makes sense that the Lakers would play it safe, given Lopez’s injury history.
With their starting center out of the lineup, the Lakers figure to lean more heavily on Julius Randle, Larry Nance Jr., and Kyle Kuzma in the coming weeks. Andrew Bogut, Ivica Zubac, and Thomas Bryant are also available for frontcourt depth purposes.
Lopez was always going to be just a rental anyways. I still believe he’ll be traded by Trade Deadline.
Starters were always going to eventually be Randle, Nance, Kuzma, Ingram and Ball
Randle is gone also.
You forgot KCP ?
Why trade players on expiring contracts if the goal is to clear cap space? To acquire worse players on expiring contracts that will ensure better losing for a higher draft pick? Well I guess that makes SOME sense. Crappy business, being tankers.
Or maybe you just haven’t thought things through, and want to gum up the roster with guaranteed-money players that are equal in value to Lopez and Randle. Turn Pelinka’s plan on its head. Rad, man
Bring in Thomas Bryant
$18m….we dodged it….