LA Lakers Taking Extra Caution With Jordan Clarkson Following Injury
By Keith Rivas
With Jordan Clarkson now injured, the LA Lakers must start to develop their sixth sense and analyze how they’ll deal with player injuries throughout the 2015-16 season.
Jordan Clarkson managed to sprain his right shoulder against the Golden State Warriors in an exhibition game last night.
With the injury — which is thankfully not looking like a super serious, season-ending ordeal by any means — the Lakers appear vigilant about taking any and all precautions to ensure Clarkson will be back at full strength shortly.
It’s always better to be safe than sorry, anyway.
SB Nation echoed reports across the web that the shoulder issue might keep Clarkson out of the home season opener against the Timberwolves, but things seem to be on the positive side from what we know following Friday’s MRI exam.
If nothing else, the news saves the team some extra embarrassment of falling short before anything even tips off.
That would be devastating.
Mike Bresnahan of the LA Times tweeted about the MRI results earlier this morning:
An MRI exam of Jordan Clarkson's shoulder showed nothing wrong. On the other hand, Lakers not sure he'll be ready for Wednesday's opener.
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) October 23, 2015
Despite the injury not looking serious, this has to be frustrating for a player like Clarkson.
The kind of emergence and power we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from him last year in his rookie campaign is expected to only be amplified in 2015-16.
But these kinds of setbacks could give way to lesser expectations.
In the big scheme of things, though, this shouldn’t affect the Lakers as badly as we might think.
In fact, the injury gives D’Angelo Russell a more clear cut picture as to why the team drafted him No. 2 overall in the last draft.
They need all the help they can get.
Russell is used to having to play with the pressure and still put up stellar numbers — getting his Ohio State team national recognition was not at all easy, he can attest to that.
While it’s not necessarily right to compare his challenges in college to what he must deal with in Los Angeles, the parallels are a good sign for LA nonetheless.
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With the mindset that it can’t really get much worse than last year’s 21 wins — a franchise worst — the Lakers made moves they felt would make an immediate impact on the floor.
And now that we know Clarkson is questionable, it just ups the ante.
Lastly, it could serve as inspiration for other players to make sure they are doing their part of the floor.
Lou Williams and Roy Hibbert are the kind of players which, while in very different roles on the team, can give a spark just as quickly as they can take away.
Mix that with a veteran like Kobe Bryant running the show, and the Lakers will be in business.
The Timberwolves are a team on the rise, so it’s also a good thing that they aren’t opening against a team like the Philadelphia 76ers.
Reason being is that we will be able to get a much better sense of what the Lakers have at their disposal against a good team right off the bat as opposed to getting our hopes up because we knocked in a half-court buzzer beater in a game that didn’t touch the 80s.
Nevertheless, I’m sure the faster they can get Clarkson back, the better.