Lakers playoff hopes hit with trio of terrible injury updates

Despite currently sitting in ninth place in the Western Conference standings, jostling for NBA Play-In Tournament positioning, many continue holding out hope that the Los Angeles Lakers will flip the switch and replicate last year’s late-season surge that led to a deep playoff run.

But as more time passes, it feels less likely that the 2023-24 Lakers can make a second consecutive trip to the Western Conference Finals. Not only are their chances of winning multiple playoff series beginning to slip away, but their hopes of reaching the postseason are in jeopardy, and the latest trio of terrible injury updates does them no favors.

Lakers lose Wood, Vincent, Vanderbilt for season

The Lakers expect Christian Wood, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Gabe Vincent to miss the remainder of the season due to their respective injuries, per CBS Sports NBA insider Bill Reiter.

Reiter notes that Vanderbilt has a chance to return, albeit slim at best, but the “expectation is that will not happen,” he adds.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski recently reported that Lakers big man Christian Wood, who has been out since Feb. 14, will undergo arthroscopic left knee surgery that should keep him sidelined for “several weeks.” Wood has 6.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per game in 50 games played this season, and those numbers won’t change, barring any unforeseen circumstances in his recovery.

Vincent has been out since Dec. 20, when he first returned to action following a two-month absence due to a left knee issue that continues to plague him and has limited him to only five games this season. Last week, reports surfaced that suggested he was nearing a return, but there seems to have been a setback that will keep him out for the rest of the year.

Vanderbilt suffered a foot injury on Feb. 1 and seemed to be making progress with a chance of returning before the end of the season, per The Athletic’s Jovan Buha. But the dynamic defensive wing is now unlikely to return at any point in the 2023-24 campaign. He averaged 5.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 51.8 percent from the floor.

Los Angeles must find a way to move forward, knowing they will be without three core rotational pieces with the red-hot Houston Rockets lurking in the shadows, who are currently riding a five-game winning streak and trail the Lakers by three games in the loss column.

Considering the Lakers trail the Sacramento Kings (who own the tiebreaker between the two) by three games for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot in the West, they have more of a chance of missing the postseason entirely than climbing up the standings, according to Basketball Reference’s Playoff Probabilities Report.