Insider Gives Injury Update On Lakers’ Jarred Vanderbilt

The Los Angeles Lakers had to deal with multiple injuries this season. LeBron James and Anthony Davis missed a few games, but Jarred Vanderbillt has been out since February 1. He suffered a foot injury in the 114-105 win over the Boston Celtics. Now the Lakers have an injury update on Vanderbilt.

Jovan Buha from The Athletic reported that Vanderbilt could return to game action sooner than expected.

“The latest I’d heard was he is progressing upward,” Buha said on March 9. “It sounds like he’s going to be back this season.”

Lakers to provide another injury update on Vanderbilt

We cannot really say that Vanderbilt will join the team by the end of the regular season.

“It’s just a matter of timing,” Buha said. “Is it two weeks from now? Is it four weeks from now? There is a big difference in terms of when he returns if it’s like the final week of the regular season. That’s better than nothing.”

Foot injuries are never easy. Vanderbilt needs to be 100% or close to that to provide efficient performance.

“But it is hard to implement that big of a piece with that little time left especially a guy who I think when he came back after missing the first 20 or so games clearly didn’t have his rhythm and his legs under him for a while,” Buha added. “So another lower-body injury like those can be a little tricky to come back from. We’ll see in terms of like how much he can actually contribute but everything I’d been hearing was trending in a positive direction.”

Buha added that Vanderbilt can still undergo a season-ending surgery. This could shut down every hope for his return this season. Losing him would be a big blow for the Lakers, but they managed to win games without him, too. He is a key player, but the rest of the roster is doing just fine at this point.