HONOLULU — If any team knows how injuries can derail a season, it’s the Lakers. L.A. missed a league-high 339 games due to injury last year and understands the importance of managing minor nicks, especially early in the season.
For this reason, second-overall pick D’Angelo Russell was taken out of practice just a quarter of the way through practice in Hawaii Friday. Russell — who suffered a bone bruise in his right foot during the first practice session on Thursday — was able to participate in every drill except a 5-on-0 runthrough during Thursday’s second session.
Russell, who expects to play in Sunday’s preseason opener, went through all of the non-competitive drills on Friday, but he did not scrimmage.
“He came out today and started going through practice,” head coach Byron Scott said, “but I could see that he was kind of limping and favoring, so I just told him to go sit down.”
Meanwhile, Metta World Peace sat out of practice for the second straight day due to a calf injury. The 35-year-old has yet to scrimmage at training camp.
“I’m sure it’s not the way he wanted it to be,” Scott said. “Hopefully (after) another day or so of rest, he can be on the floor and participating in practice.”
Finally, Nick Young was hit by a back spasm at the end of Friday’s scrimmaging session, shortly after hitting a jumper (see below). However, after practice Scott said that Young is “fine.”
Like World Peace, Kobe Bryant sat out practice on Friday, though his absence was simply for a day of rest.
Despite several missing participants at practice, Scott was largely unconcerned about the team’s ability to continue as scheduled.
“That’s why we brought the numbers that we brought,” he said. “We brought 19 guys to camp because you always got to figure you’re gonna have three or four guys on the shelf sooner or later. So you still have enough guys to kind of do the things you want to do on a day-to-day basis.”
Looking ahead to Sunday, Scott envisions having his starters play 15-20 minutes, then having part of the bench play, while the other sits. Then the Sunday non-participants will play on Tuesday, while the others will not.
“We want to give those other guys that are coming in a significant amount of time to show what they’re gonna do,” Scott said.