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Anthony Davis injury update: Lakers star ruled out of primetime showdown with Rockets

After taking a scary fall against the Knicks almost two weeks ago that left him with the most famous gluteus maximus contusion in the NBA, there was the possibility that Anthony Davis could be back in action for the Lakers‘ showdown with the Rockets on Saturday night, as ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported. However, the franchise ruled the All-Star out of the matchup just over an hour prior to the scheduled tip-off time. 

The Lakers have been, and will surely continue to be, cautious with Davis. But it doesn’t appear they’re going to take sitting him out any further than it truly needs to go. McMenamin reported that while Davis did not participate in the Lakers’ practice on Friday, he did go through an individual workout afterward that consisted of “light sprinting and spot shooting in a full-court drill with several members of the Lakers coaching staff.”

Lakers coach Frank Vogel is walking a fine line of playing it safe with his star big man and wanting him back on the court for obvious reasons. On Friday, Vogel was asked how “anxious”  he’s been about Davis’ absence in the lineup. 

“On a 1-10 (scale)? Twenty? Thirty? Forty? A hundred? Two-hundred? I’m very anxious, but also having the mindset to be very wise and patient and intelligent about an injury to a very important player that we’re not going to rush back,” Vogel said, via McMenamin. “We’re going to be conservative and make sure he’s right before we return him to play, have a marathon mindset to the season, as we would with all of our players, but in particular someone of his caliber.”

The Lakers have performed admirably during Davis’ four-game absence, going 3-1 with wins over the Mavericks and Thunder — the latter of which they pulled off with LeBron James sidelined, as well. During that stretch, the Lakers — whose only loss came to the Magic on Wednesday — are a plus-14.8 and are shooting a collective 41 percent from three. Small sample size, sure. But these are encouraging signs for a team playing without an MVP candidate, and playing with two of them in one game,

Kyle Kuzma, who was coming off the bench before Davis went down, has seen the bump in minutes and should continue to start as long is Davis is out. Kuzma carried the Lakers in the aforementioned win over OKC with Davis and LeBron both sidelined, going 14 for 24 from the field, including 4 of 6 from beyond the arc, for 36 points. He added seven boards and was a team-high plus-20 for the game. 

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