Kendrick Nunn is ‘still a ways away’ from returning for Lakers

When the Lakers initially announced that Kendrick Nunn had suffered a bone bruise in his right knee, the team said he’d be reevaluated in 2-3 weeks. Three weeks would have been Thursday, Nov. 11.

However, in a reminder that “reevaluated” does not usually mean “immediately return,” Lakers head coach Frank Vogel’s latest update on Nunn’s status — given prior to the Lakers’ game against the Chicago Bulls on Monday, Nov. 15 — did not offer a lot of hope he’ll be back anytime soon.

“Still a ways away. I don’t have a specific update on him, but still a ways away,” Vogel said.

Last week, the day before that original re-evaluation date, Vogel’s update was slightly more specific, but no more rosy.

“(Nunn is) still a ways away. I don’t know what the exact timeline is,” Vogel said. “He just started experiencing some soreness in that knee right around the time when he had an ankle sprain, and it was concerning enough to have it looked at.

“They determined that to be safe, given the area in the knee that it was, that he needed to be off it for some time.”

That bit about the location of the injury and needing to stay off of it certainly doesn’t lend a lot of hope that Nunn will be able to return soon or hit the ground running, and as our own Dr. Brar noted in his original medical analysis of Nunn’s injury, bone bruises can be stubborn. So while Nunn could be quickly cleared for a return in the next few weeks as he continues to get reevaluated, it sounds like we shouldn’t necessarily assume that’s in the offing.

Monday night against Chicago will be the 13th game he’s missed since suffering this injury in training camp.

But while these updates are not entirely surprising, they’re still unfortunate ones for the Lakers, who could really use some extra ballhandling and shot creation right now while waiting for LeBron James to return from his abdominal strain. For now, Nunn won’t be there to provide it, and at this point — given how much the team has tried to avoid this topic — it doesn’t seem like we should be holding our breath until he can.

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