Lakers Doing Jarred Vanderbilt Dirty With Latest Injury Update
There's lots to like about what is going on with the Los Angeles Lakers' season so far, but the Jarred Vanderbilt situation has been one of the major negative storylines. After signing a fully guaranteed four-year extension last season, Vanderbilt has yet to play in 2024 after undergoing foot surgery.
Already well behind schedule, the latest update has revealed that his 2024-25 season debut doesn't even seem to be especially close. Understandably, fans are livid. There are no shortage of calls to trade him, and plenty of fans are accusing him of sandbagging his return since he already has his new contract guaranteed.
But this situation isn't on Vanderbilt. The team has done him dirty, making him the scapegoat for a problem of their own creation.
Jarred Vanderbilt’s rehabilitation will continue for the next couple of weeks before the next update. He’s been ramping up activity, but the progression has been more gradual than the team anticipated. They’ll be patient as his body builds up. There have been no setbacks, but…
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) November 21, 2024
Where did fans get the idea that Vanderbilt might be ready for Opening Night? That one came from Rob Pelinka. Not from Vanderbilt. Not from leaks inside the building. Not from the training staff. Just a comment from the team's GM, which put the idea in fans' heads.
And consider that plenty of Lakers fans and reporters knew better than to believe Pelinka even at the time. It just didn't seem realistic that Opening Night was ever on the table. And the fact that he hasn't suffered any setbacks and the training staff is choosing to be patient suggests that nothing is really going any different than was originally planned.
So if this was the original plan, how much different would fans be feeling about Vanderbilt had Palinka just been honest? A simple "no chance he'll be ready for Opening Night, it could still be a month or two" answer would have done the trick. Would fans have been frustrated? For sure. But there would be time for that frustration to have subsided by November, and it wouldn't lead to a new burst of hate directed toward Vanderbilt every single time a new update is released.
Cynically, it's also not hard to see why a GM who gave a guy with injury concerns a fully guaranteed contract might want it to seem like it's the player's fault that he's not back on the court, rather than a potential mistake by the team.
It's totally fair for fans to be frustrated that Vanderbilt is out and to want to trade him if he can't stay on the court, but this whole situation reeks of the organization trying to turn him into a scapegoat for their own shortcomings.
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