Frank Vogel confirms it’s ‘unlikely’ that the Lakers will bring Anthony Davis back prior to All-Star break

When the Lakers announced that Anthony Davis had not ruptured his Achilles tendon following the results of his Monday MRI, they did not offer much of a timeline for him to return to play. The organization said Davis would be re-evaluated by their doctors upon the team’s return to Los Angeles on Wednesday, but the only timeline for the injury we had to go on was from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, who reported that Davis would miss at least the next two or three weeks following the setback.

Wojnarowski and multiple other reporters later added that Davis would in all probability sit out through the All-Star break, a timeline that head coach Frank Vogel confirmed was all-but-guaranteed prior to Tuesday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“He’s going to be re-evaluated when we get back, but it’s unlikely that we bring him back before the break. But we’ll see,” Vogel said. “Certainly we’re going to be cautious with this type of injury, and we’ll see how he responds to treatment and re-evaluate him in a couple weeks.”

As for if the injury could have been caused by the unprecedentedly short offseason and expedited season cycle the Lakers are in the middle of, Vogel said he couldn’t be sure.

“I haven’t had those talks with the medical team, but certainly that’s in the back of our minds with the short turnaround. These are things that you worry about, but again, hopefully it’s not serious,” Vogel said. “It’s really one of those things that’s out of our control, so me personally, I don’t spend too much time thinking about it.”

The NBA All-Star break will run March 5-9, with the game taking place on March 7 and some teams resuming games on March 10, a day earlier than originally planned. The second half of the NBA schedule hasn’t been revealed yet, but the Lakers will presumably start games on either the 10th, 11th or 12th, which would give Davis nearly an entire month off to get his leg right. We’ll see if he’s ready to play then or if he needs more time, but at this point we can all safely assume that the Lakers are going to play this as cautiously as possible. That’s as good of news as there can be after how quickly Davis returned last time.

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