A pair of Lakers guards are working toward their returns to the court, as Dave McMenamin of ESPN relays (via Twitter).
Head coach Frank Vogel told reporters on Monday that Talen Horton-Tucker has had the stitches removed from his surgically-repaired right thumb and will begin shooting on Tuesday. Vogel also said that Wayne Ellington, who has yet to play this season due to a hamstring injury, will practice with the South Bay Lakers in the G League before debuting for the NBA team.
Horton-Tucker and Ellington are among a handful of Lakers that have yet to play this season due to injuries — Kendrick Nunn and Trevor Ariza have also been on the shelf since the regular season began. The club has managed to stay afloat in part by getting contributions from bench players who weren’t expected to play regular roles, including undrafted rookie Austin Reaves and recently-added veteran Avery Bradley.
Here’s more on the Lakers:
- Carmelo Anthony, who scoffed at the idea of playing a bench role for the Thunder back in 2017, said on Sunday that he believes there’s a “misconception out there” about his willingness to play any role asked of him. “I think people don’t really understand me,” the Lakers forward said, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “… I’m easily adaptable, man, to any situation.” Anthony is thriving in a reserve role so far this season, averaging 16.7 PPG on .500/.522/.786 shooting in seven games (27.0 MPG).
- With strong defenders like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marc Gasol, and Alex Caruso no longer on the roster, the Lakers are asking their stars to do more “dirty work” on the defensive end, as Kyle Goon of The Southern California News Group details. “I think for a lot of our guys – Bron, A.D., Melo, Russ – a lot of their careers they’ve had a lot of ‘dirty work’ guys around them,” Frank Vogel said. “And now they have to support each other in that way and really commit to guarding their own man and executing our scheme.”
- Count Vogel among those that believes the NBA should consider tweaking its rules to crack down on the so-called “Euro foul,” as Mike Trudell of Lakers.com tweets. While the NBA has made some changes this year to how fouls are called, the league has yet to address these intentional fouls to stop fast breaks.
Kyle Goon is such an awesome name, I am the biggest lebron hater this side of the Mississippi, but I really love this lakers team and it’s preposterous roster construction, hopefully they get Melo a ring before he calls it a career, what a great scorer
Melo should of had a ring already but LBJ refused to allow him to join him until now. Both LBJ and Melo have reached the desperation time to try and win.
Melo was supposed to join up with wade and lebron. wade and lebron signed for identical 3 year contracts and Melo signed for 5 year max with Denver.. so that was 100% on Melo wanting to get paid before winning. Bosh ended up being the 3rd player instead of melo
Melo simply learned a great lesson the last couple years. He’s humble and no longer entitled, in much better physical shape, plays defense, and shares the ball. In other words, he’s much better teammate than he has ever been. It’s nice to see him finish out his career in dignity.
Agree with Vogel, the “so-called” euro-foul… that is what the league should have stopped not the fouls that they have, just keeping the flow of the fast break is vital for the game!
Austin Reaves is not on a two-way contract
Good catch, thanks.
I was thinking the same thing because he wouldn’t be able to stay with the team much longer if he was
Letting Caruso go for chicken feed (for the 4.8 billion dollars Laker organization) is going be the dumb move that keeps them from being a complete team.
They have committed to trying to out score the league. And so far it’s working 5th in offense 23rd in defense.