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The Los Angeles Lakers have officially Anthony Davis as out for their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday with right Achilles tendinosis. He was initially listed as questionable:
The Lakers are now listing Anthony Davis as out tonight against OKC with the right Achilles tendonosis @mcten report lasted night. Alex Caruso is questionable with a right hand strain.
— Bill Oram (@billoram) February 8, 2021
Davis has played through a multitude of injuries this season, including the right quad contusion that kept him out of the Lakers’ game against the Detroit Pistons on Jan. 28, but this is the first time that Davis has had an issue with his Achilles tendon this season. It should also be noted that Davis’ Achilles tendinosis is in the same leg that he’s had all of his other leg injuries this season:
All this comes after a two-month turnaround and playing on a secret ankle injury in the finals. All I'm saying is we should maybe be cutting him a bit more slackhttps://t.co/p1XpDrFLva
— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) February 8, 2021
Dave McMenamin of ESPN had some good news on the severity of the injury:
New story: Anthony Davis is “very likely” to miss Monday’s game against OKC with tightness in his right leg, a league source tells ESPN. The Lakers’ All-Star big man underwent testing to check out his Achilles’ tendon, which came back clean https://t.co/hytx1N5Ymq
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) February 8, 2021
We obviously don’t know the full severity of Davis’ injury, but anything related to the Achilles is a cause for concern among fans. It’s especially worrying when you consider the fact that Davis and the Lakers are coming off the longest season in NBA history, which only ended in October. Opening night of the regular season was two months later on Dec. 22.
The good news is that given how Davis was initially listed as questionable, at this stage, the training staff didn’t think his injury was serious enough to rule him out entirely. It’s also good that the Lakers have the depth to play without Davis for an extended period of time if they need to. Davis has played in 21 of the Lakers’ 24 games this season. Two of the three games he missed were on the second night of a back-to-back. The Lakers don’t play another back-to-back game until March 3, which is the final day of the first half of the regular season.
Davis has averaged 22.3 points, 8.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.9 blocks and 1.4 steals per game while averaging 33.6 minutes per game this season.
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