As Lonzo Ball comes back from knee surgery, the Los Angeles Lakers are being very careful with him.
With training camp upon us, the Los Angeles Lakers are preparing for what should be an exciting season. So far, the Lakers are doing pretty well on the injury front heading into the preseason, but the status of Lonzo Ball still is a bit up in the air.
Ball underwent surgery over the summer for his ailing knee, and the reports of how healthy he is have been a bit murky. After practice on Tuesday, Lakers head coach Luke Walton gave a bit of an update on what Lonzo’s status is. Here’s what he had to say via Anthony Irwin of SilverScreenAndRoll.com.
"“We’ll take it one day at a time,” Walton said. “So he practices tonight. It’s no contact, but we have a lot of running tonight. So we’ll see how he feels tomorrow. As long as he feels fine then he’ll take part in practice tomorrow, and that’ll be contact, and we’ll see how he feels from that the next day and just kind of keep building off of that.”"
Seeing the Lakers being careful with Ball is certainly a smart thing to do at this stage of the season. Unlike last season, the Lakers have a capable point guard other than Ball in Rajon Rondo.
With the preseason nearly here, Rondo appears to be the starter for the Lakers, and he is certainly able to do that at a high level. While Lonzo is an important part of the Lakers this season, he is also going to be an important part of the franchise for years to come.
Since he has battled some injuries early on in his career, the Lakers are making the right move to bring him along slowly. We are just a few days away from the first preseason game for the Lakers on September 30th against the Denver Nuggets. While it would nice to see Ball be able to play in that game to build chemistry with his teammates, the Lakers will want him to likely get through some contact practices first.
Even though it might seem like they are being overly cautious with Ball, that is certainly the right move at this time.