The Los Angeles Lakers have received some scary news regarding small forward Brandon Ingram.
Los Angeles Lakers swingman Brandon Ingram is expected to not suit up for the team again this season. The third-year player has been diagnosed with a Deep Venous Thrombosis (DVT) in his right arm.
Word of the unfortunate news regarding Ingram came about per a report Saturday by ESPN.
Based on what Greg Beacham of The Associated Press shared, Ingram’s condition is a scary thing to think about. The onset of a DVT comes from a blood clot, which can cause a lot of pain within the affected limb.
As Beacham astutely pointed out, 11-time All-Star Chris Bosh was forced to call it a career because of blood clotting symptoms.
As of when this was written, Ingram has not played in the Lakers’ last two games on account of a sore right shoulder. Certainly, the recent diagnosis sheds light on what triggered the soreness.
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Per Sam Cooper of Yahoo Sports, the 21-year-old talent had some tests conducted on him Friday to get to the bottom of the issue. Unfortunately, the discovery of the blood clot is yet another punch to the gut for the Lakers.
The Lakers have had an extremely challenging season with respect to injuries. However, this particular circumstance Ingram is facing is by far the hardest circumstance the team has faced in 2018-2019.
Chris Bengel of CBS Sports went into additional detail about the severity of what Ingram is enduring. While his DVT is treatable, Ingram would be in a bad spot if a second DVT is located.
Bengel goes on to indicate that a second one would necessitate Ingram being on blood-thinning medication. In that event, B.I. would not be able to be on the court given that it could spur unwanted bleeding.
Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times went one step further in illustrating the seriousness of B.I.’s situation. She explained that a DVT can find its way to the lungs if it goes unnoticed. Per her piece, it potentially makes having this condition “life-threatening.”
Thankfully, the team’s medical staff detected the problem when they did. It is safe to suspect they will be keeping a close eye on Ingram for a good stretch.
Although the Lakers have not been playing well of late, Ingram represented one of the few silver linings amid the chaos. Since the All-Star break subsided, the slender-figured athlete was playing at an All-Star level. In his last six games, he was putting up an average of nearly 28 points a night.
As far as his entire season is considered, Ingram has put together averages of 18.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game. The points category is a career-high for the former No. 2 overall draft selection.
Considering Los Angeles is already out of the playoff picture, the news about the blood clot is just awful. Simply awful.
It is extremely possible, as of now, that the Lakers may not achieve last year’s win total. Certainly, at the beginning of the season, getting more than 35 W’s seemed like a given. However, those odds have thinned drastically.
As Matthew Moreno of Lakers Nation put it, the squad will experience depth issues the rest of the way. The glaring issue outside of Ingram is the health of Lonzo Ball.
Ball is still out of the lineup at this juncture by virtue of an ankle injury, and the sad news here is that he, too, may miss the rest of the season.
That being said, the Lakers are just in a fragile, unbelievable place at the time being. Things have literally gone from bad to worse.
Because of Ingram’s injury, the Lakers have a couple of options as to who may take his place for the remainder of the year. For instance, it is possible Josh Hart will fill the void or at least get a bump in minutes.
Regardless of how many wins the Lakers have by the end of the 2018-2019 campaign, one can only hope no one else gets hurt. That would at least be a small win in a sense.