As the journey of the new season enters a white-hot phase, teams have also ushered in a wave of injuries, especially the new round of the epidemic, resulting in a large number of players triggering safety agreements and unable to play.
Among them, the Lakers have also fallen into this predicament in recent days, according to the famous Shams report, the Lakers' third giant Wei Shao has also determined to trigger the alliance health and safety agreement, and will miss the game for a period of time in the future.
Soon after, the Lakers officially updated the injury list, confirming that the 7 could not play in the next period of time, the Purple and Gold Army fell into the biggest wave of injuries since the beginning of the season, the team also urgently signed the old general, and the league sent two more exceptions.
According to the Lakers' latest official injury list, the Lakers have a total of 7 people who are determined not to play in the next game.
The seven are Ariza (with an ankle injury), Nunn (with a knee injury), and Howard, Munch, Westbrook, Bradley and Tucker, who triggered a safety deal and couldn't play.
In addition, James and The Thick Brow Brother are also plagued by injuries and will most likely miss the next game.
With 7 players unable to play in one go, coupled with injury problems at the two cores, the Lakers also received two difficult exceptions given by the league.
Here's a quick explanation of the difficult exception, because in most cases, it's actually very difficult for a team to trigger such a special case.
Under normal circumstances, a team can only have 15 points of formal contract players, and two two-way contract players, which is often referred to as 15+2.
But if a team suffers a serious wave of injuries and at least four players miss at least 3 games, or at least two weeks or more, then the team can ask for an injury exception to sign the sixteenth player.
The sixteenth player does not occupy the team's salary space, but also can not follow the team to the playoffs, after the return of 4 injured players, the team must complete the layoffs, to ensure that the big lineup list is still 15+2 for a total of 17 players.
After the arrival of the new crown epidemic, the league added a special case, a team in special circumstances (in the face of the new crown attack, can have three two-way contracts), which means that the Lakers roster can actually have up to 19 people, instead of the previous 15+2 17 people.
To put it bluntly, because the Lakers are absent too many people, it may lead to the game not being able to play normally, and the league chartered the Lakers to sign two more people, but after the return of the injured, the Lakers need to re-make the big list to meet the 15+2 rule.
Due to the urgency of the situation, the Lakers also completed a reinforcement operation at the first time of getting a special case, signing the old Thomas Jr. with a short contract for 10 days.
The latter only joined the Development League not long ago, and in the first game for the Development League, Thomas Jr. exploded with 42 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists, proving his immediate combat strength.
Shortly after the famous Shams exposed the news, Thomas Jr. himself forwarded the news, which is considered to be the authenticity of the news.
And the caption said: "Thank you Lakers for giving me a chance to prove that everyone is wrong, let's do it!" ”
It is not difficult to see from Thomas's voice that he is still eager to complete self-proof, and this time joining the Lakers who are short of major generals is undoubtedly a good opportunity.
In addition, from the situation of the Lakers, it can also be seen that the impact of the injury wave on the league game, before the Bulls game has been forced to postpone.
Therefore, Timberwolves vice president Robby Sikka also revealed in an interview with The Athletic that the league is coping with this wave of injuries, and all players need to be injected with reinforcing needles, and players without injections need to be tested before each game starting Friday.
At the same time, the league is considering whether to allow players who test positive for the new crown but are asymptomatic to continue to play, but the league has not yet taken the necessary measures.