Talen Horton-Tucker has been diagnosed with a torn ligament in his right thumb, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Sources tell Charania that the Lakers guard will undergo surgery to repair the ligament.
Horton-Tucker, who will turn 21 next month, emerged as a regular rotation player for the Lakers in 2020/21, averaging 9.0 PPG, 2.8 APG, and 2.6 RPG on .458/.282/.775 shooting in 65 games (20.1 MPG). He signed a three-year contract worth nearly $31MM during the 2021 offseason, with the team making a big bet on his continued development.
While a recovery timeline for Horton-Tucker hasn’t been provided yet, it seems safe to assume he’ll be sidelined to open the regular season. Recovery from a thumb surgery is typically measured in weeks or months, not days.
It’s another blow to a Lakers team that will be missing Trevor Ariza (ankle) for several weeks to start the season. Head coach Frank Vogel said on Sunday that Malik Monk will also be out for “probably about a week” due to a strained groin, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN (Twitter link), so the Lakers’ backcourt and wing depth will be tested early. Wayne Ellington, Kent Bazemore, and Kendrick Nunn could see increased roles.
2 down 13 to go.
Even most of their young players aren’t very durable. Without Ariza or THT their options of whom to start alongside the Big 3 are shrinking by the day.
Moving AD back to PF would only make things worse for their spacing, with a PG who shoots just 30.5% from three-point range. Starting Melo is an option, but it would really hurt them defensively, putting unwanted pressure on the Big 3 to concentrate more on defense. Ellington and Bazemore will most likely be a part of the starting lineup when the regular season begins.
I don’t expect those 90 years old legs to be healthy
More to come
Ah you see all those so called wise folks, who usually know nothing at all, saying all those oldies in LAL will get injured… well so far they are doing an awful lot better than the young ones, which are getting twice as much injured as the oldies… how about that?
With 2 wing players out, 3 counting Monk, Rondo will get some run for now with Nunn playing more off the ball. Also more minutes for the centers and Melo, all depending who they are playing. They still have 11 healthy players. Mix and match to the opponent. The bigger early concern is Westbrook so far looks lost. The ball movement they are trying to move more towards thus year does not so far look suited to Russ’s ball dominant ways. With the ball out if his hands teams just sag off if him. With the bugs out there he doesn’t have the lane to drive. When Ariza gets healthy I think they will move more to playing one big at a time, at least when Russ is on the court.
They need spacing
so badly
This is going to really hurt their guard defense, and even their already hurt wing defense. LeBron is significantly more important than he probably previously was at multiple positions, and I think Austin Reaves might get more playing time on the wing than originally thought earlier on. Westbrook or Rondo are also more important defensively at guard
They really shouldnt have wasted roster spots on guys like DeAndre Jordan and so many PGs, more than guys like Wesley Matthews and other similar options, when that was already a weakness last year, and then they lost KCP and Matthews as well, and only got Ariza, who is arguably more of a 4 now, and now he is already injured
Also, as I said, getting rid of Gasol made zero sense
If Melo goes down Lakers are screwed
Not nearly as much if something happens to either LeBron, Russ, or AD.
Dammit why are the young guys going down lol