The Lakers will return home against the Suns in the next game, and they are not in a very good situation at the moment, suffering from the double problem of epidemic and injury. Before the game, the Lakers also updated the latest injury report, in which 6 players triggered the health and safety agreement, all of them missed the game; and 2 players were injured and would continue to be absent.
The players who triggered the health and safety agreement are: Tucker Jr., Howard, Reeves, Munch, Bradley and Bazemore, all six players will miss the next game, and there is still no exact time when they will return. It can be seen that these players are some of the main candidates of the team, and the lack of them also makes the team a bit unbearable, and it is not expected that in the end, the head coach Vogel also triggered the health and safety agreement. Now that Vogel and Bazemore are in quarantine in Chicago, they may soon be back.
In addition, Davis suffered a sprained left knee and will miss at least 4 weeks or so; Nunn still has a knee injury and is still unable to play in the game, and has not played for the team in the regular season this season. James and Ariza are both on the list with a high probability of playing, with a 75% chance of playing. Ariza's return is still very helpful to the team, his defense and three points are the needs of the team, and in recent games he needs to get back in shape as soon as possible in order to help the team more.
Due to the multiple trigger health and safety agreements, coupled with some injuries, the Lakers have a serious shortage of manpower, in order to prevent the game from being postponed, the Lakers can only sign players through difficult special cases. The Lakers took the lead in signing Thomas Jr., who has played 2 games for the team and played well. This time, the Lakers signed 2 people in a row, namely Gemellio Jones and Mason Jones, of which Mason Jones signed a two-way contract. After adding the three of them, the Lakers' manpower has become sufficient, and there is no need to worry about the postponement of the game.
The Lakers are still much better than the Nets, so the three cores of Durant, Harden and Irving have all been recruited, and the strength has also dropped significantly. The Lakers have James and Westbrook on their side, and as long as they are still there, the Lakers have the possibility of beating any team. Although the Lakers' play this season is not stable enough, James is still very stable, still averaging 25.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game. Westbrook needs to do more, to ease James's burden.
General manager Pelinka said: The Lakers traded to get Westbrook and sign more ball carriers because the team wanted to reduce James' physical consumption.