Ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers playing a 13th consecutive game without LeBron James and Rajon Rondo, the team knew their two leaders were set to rejoin them at practice. Though, despite that, head coach Luke Walton said neither was likely to play Monday.
If not against the Golden State Warriors on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the next opportunity for James and Rondo to return from respective injuries is Thursday when the Lakers host the Minnesota Timberwolves.
With that in the back of their mind and as the Lakers were playing toward a second consecutive win and sweep of their two-game road trip, the injury bug struck yet again as Lonzo Ball suffered a sprained left ankle in the third quarter of Saturday’s loss to the Houston Rockets.