The Los Angeles Lakers have received nothing but bad news when it comes to the health of the team this season. Ironically enough, Los Angeles has gotten mostly healthy seasons out of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, it is the cast around them that has been banged up.
What looked like a deep Lakers rotation this season has been tested with injury after injury. On Tuesday, the worst injury news of all dropped as it was reported that the trio of Christian Wood, Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent would miss the rest of the season for the purple and gold.
That is obviously a huge blow for the Lakers as the team needs all the help it can get in order to get past the best teams in the Western Conference. If the trio of Wood, Vanderbilt and Vincent are all out the rest of the year then any dreams the team had of making a deep playoff run are over.
However, the report that the trio of role players are missing the rest of the season may not be as concrete as fans originally thought. Shortly after it was reported that the trio would be out for the year, NBA insider Marc Stein reported that Vincent is nearing a return to the Lakers.
Lakers G Gabe Vincent is nearing a return and intends to play again this season barring any setbacks, league sources tell @TheSteinLine.
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) March 19, 2024
Vincent has played in just 5 games as a Laker and underwent arthroscopic surgery (left knee) in late December.
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Lakers fans don't know which Gabe Vincent injury update to believe
It is important to note that Stein's update about Vincent came after the initial report that he would be out the rest of the year and that is very important in this situation. With how NBA media works, there is a very high chance that someone in Vincent's camp saw the report and wanted to provide a more accurate update to Stein.
Is that update actually more accurate? Or is Vincent's camp being too optimistic that he will return when it might not be in the cards? That is the question that is impossible to answer and only time will tell.
All that being said, there were positive updates around Vincent prior to either of these reports. Shams Charania said last week that Vincent was gearing up to return and could be back in the fold as soon as "next week" (which is this week).
That obviously has not happened yet but there was positive momentum around his return. It seems a bit odd that all of that positive momentum would be axed and he would be ruled out for the year so shortly after that update from Shams.
At the end of the day, the Lakers have been incredibly tight-lipped about the team's injuries so it is impossible to know what the true fact of the matter is. But at least in Vincent's case, there is a hope that he could return soon.