Should Free Agents Be Concerned About Lakers’ Chronic Health Issues?

The injury-riddled Los Angeles Lakers will have a lot of open spots to fill next season. Should NBA free agents be concerned about the team’s chronic health issues?

This isn’t just your garden variety of sports maladies—it’s an outright epidemic. During a season in which injuries across the league have seemingly skyrocketed, the Lakers have resembled a Typhoid Mary of broken bones, injured knees, ruptured tendons, herniated discs and more.

The team lost 184 games last season due to injury and are already at 176 missed games this season. Is this a red flag for potential free agents? 

Injuries are always a part of the game, and for the moment, most players will be thinking about the current season. Come this summer, however, that could change.

Meanwhile, the Lakers’ problems continue. Steve Nash has missed 74 out of 133 games since joining the Lakers. On Sunday against the Chicago Bulls, he got kneed in the exact same spot where he fractured his leg last season. That original fracture, of course, led to the nerve root issues that have plagued him ever since.

Fortunately, this latest mishap doesn’t seem to be serious, with Nash hoping to play Tuesday against the Jazz.



It’s easy to point to age as a culprit—Nash turned 40 last week. It’s not so easy to use that as an excuse for the team’s woes on whole, however. The Lakers’ injury parade seems to have no preference, striking both the old and chronically beat-up, and players who have been relatively unscathed.

On February 5 against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Nick Young suffered a non-displaced fracture of his left patella. It seemed like one more freak occurrence for a player who had been doing fine all season.



The never-ending carousel has Lakers head coach Mike D’Antoni throwing new starting lineups onto the floor, neces...

About the Author