The Lakers are in the midst of a major crisis these days. Defeats (three in a row and six in the last 10 games), many doubts about their game and whether Redick has the locker room under control, and bad vibes with the coach’s statements about the lack of effort and commitment of his players.
And to all this are added the injuries. LeBron James suffered them, missing the start of a season for the first time in his career, as did Luka Doncic, who has missed seven of his team’s 29 games (the limit to qualify for the MVP award and best team is 15), and now it is the turn of Austin Reaves.
The Los Angeles Lakers will have to live for at least a month without the invaluable help of Austin Reaves, who was injured in the Christmas Day game against the Houston Rockets. Reaves suffered a strain in his left calf and will be evaluated again in a month, so the absence could be even longer.
In fact, the player had already had some problems in that area and had returned to play recently, against the Suns. Now the injury will be longer, four weeks, and the hole bigger.
Although there are critics of the Lakers who point to the lack of on-court compatibility of Reaves with Doncic and LeBron, the fact is that the Lakers player is going through the best of his five seasons in the NBA. He has personal bests in points (26.6), rebounds (5.2) and assists (6.3), and in the absence of LeBron and Doncic he had great games with 40 and even 50 points.
The injury to Reaves is quite typical in basketball and is caused by the tearing of fibers in the calf muscle in activities such as jumping, stopping dead, sprinting or changing direction on the court. During Reaves’ estimated layoff period, the Lakers will play 15 games against such powerful league rivals as the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets.
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