With Rui Hachimura off the injury report ahead of the Lakers’ game against the Kings, it was expected that he would play in Sacramento.
Lakers head coach JJ Redick mentioned during practice that Hachimura would be on a minutes restriction. He also stated he would be coming off the bench as he ramps up to full health, and then after that, he’d assess whether Hachimura would start again.
However, in LA’s blowout loss to Sacramento, Hachimura ended up not playing at all. So why did he remain on the bench
despite being listed as available?
“He was only available for one game,” Redick said of the back-to-back on Monday and Tuesday. “And we didn’t know that until this morning. And severe minutes restrictions, so it made sense to play him tomorrow.”
Since the Lakers filed their injury report the day before and received information on Hachimura afterwards, he ended up as a DNP-CD instead of being ruled out.
Since he won’t be starting and Redick used the words “severe” when describing Hachimura’s restrictions, it’ll be interesting to see how much he actually plays.
Regardless of his limited availability, getting Hachimura back after missing seven games is a plus. This calf issue has been a new injury for Hachimura and him testing it out in a game situation and coming out of it okay is needed so he can continue his year.
Hopefully, he does, in fact, play against the Hawks and can officially move on from this injury.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
