Gabe Vincent’s injury history with the Lakers is longer than anyone would like. He missed the majority of the 2023-24 season recovering from knee surgery. This season, he’s already missed 19 games due to injury, most recently missing nine contests to a lumbar back strain.
On Tuesday, Vincent returned to action as the Lakers lost to the Spurs. Though he looked like a player who just missed three weeks, in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t matter. Getting Vincent back was the win that came out
of this contest.
“It felt good to get out there and get some run,” Vincent said postgame. “I did what I could in workouts trying to play against managers, some of the players when I could, to prep myself for the game. But it felt good to get out there and compete and play with the guys. Went through my minutes, handled them well. Body feels good so far, so I’ll take it.”
Considering how much time Vincent missed, he wasn’t going to come in and pick up where he left off. Pregame, Lakers head coach JJ Redick discussed this and made it clear Vincent would play a maximum of 18 minutes.
Vincent played exactly that much and since he’s feeling good, it won’t be long before he’s allowed to play as much as Redick desires, so long as his body holds up.
“I’m confident I’ll be back,” Vincent said. “But, obviously, we’ll see how the body feels after the flight. But I think it’ll do well.”
While Vincent has dealt with knee, ankle and oblique injuries before, a back problem was uncharted territory for the seven-year veteran.
“I’ve never really dealt with anything with the back before so it was a new injury for me,” Vincent said. “Thankfully, it didn’t keep me out too long. It felt like forever, but I think it was only about three weeks. Grateful to be back. Tough start to the year with the ankle and now the back, but hopefully we’re good moving forward.”
Given Vincent’s role in the rotation, the Lakers need him to be healthy so he can contribute on the court. He took a big step by returning against the Spurs, and now he needs to string together days and build his stamina.
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