Not an ideal situation at the Los Angeles Lakers training camp in Hawaii. As purple and gold uniforms took over the University of Hawaii basketball courts this week, the team hoping to make a surprise push into the playoffs might have to stop looking forward and take things slow with their rookie star guard, D’Angelo Russell, for the time being.
D’Angelo Russell sustained an injury during Lakers practice on Thursday and he reportedly wasn’t inclined to stand up when the media came around to talk to him. According to Russell, he is fine but it could always be worse.
Following from Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times.
Russell made it through the morning practice session with a bone bruise on the bottom of his right foot, though the Lakers weren’t sure if he would sit out the afternoon session, or maybe even Friday’s practice.
Russell tried to downplay the soreness and knocked an iPhone out of Roy Hibbert‘s hands when his teammate tried to snap a picture of the foot.
But then Russell had a pertinent question for a Lakers employee who told him it was time to talk to reporters.
“Do I have to stand up?” he said.
He didn’t. He sat in a padded chair while media members circled around him.
Russell said he needed to ice the foot more often after practices.
And following from Mike Trudell on Lakers.com.
“I feel fine,” Russell said. “It’s just a little bruise.”
The 19-year-old suggested that he needs to take better care to ice his foot, and hopes it’s just a small flare up due in part to all of the running the team’s been doing for the first three days of Byron Scott’s training camp.
“We’ll see how he feels later on tonight, see if he can go tonight,” said Scott. “And if not – if he has pain there – we’ll sit him down for precautionary reasons and we’ll get him ready for tomorrow. But right now he’s not ruled out for tonight’s practice.”
If Russell is fine, then everything should be alright. It’s not an optimal situation to have your prized young star get injured during training camp but with some time off his feet, Russell should be ok.
Then again, we’ve seen reported ‘bone bruises’ turn into way worse things so hopefully Russell, the Lakers and their trainer, Gary Vitti, will take this as serious as possible.
