Lakers plan to play David Nwaba against Spurs before sending him to D-Fenders for playoffs

The end of the NBA season is notorious for featuring tired players attempting to summon their last reserves of energy in order to make it through their final remaining games before the postseason.

Most members of the Los Angeles Lakers don't have playoffs to prepare for after a mentally exhausting season which saw them fire out of the gate before tripping up and falling to the bottom of the league about a quarter of the way through.

Rookie guard David Nwaba is the exception, and will have to summon even more energy than his teammates as the seeason winds to a close because he'll be pulling double duty for a Texas two-step.

Head coach Luke Walton told Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News that he plans to have Nwaba play in the Lakers' Wednesday night road game against the San Antonio Spurs before sending him down on assignment to play with the Los Angeles D-Fenders as they open the postseason against the Rio Grande Valley Vipers Thursday.

After averaging 5.4 points and 3.1 rebounds in 18.5 minutes per game so far as an NBA rookie, Nwaba will get more playing time than that as he serves as reinforcements for a D-Fenders team he helped propel to the second seed in the Western Conference before being called up to the Lakers.

Nwaba is signed to a two-year deal with the Lakers to finish out this season, with a $1.3 million team option for next season, so this move isn’t necessarily a demotion, but more of a chance to give Nwaba a chance to finish what he started with the D-Fenders and give the Lakers more minutes to evaluate him heading into the summer.

All stats per NBA.com. and Basketball-Reference.com. Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.