Lakers Injury Report: Darvin Ham Hints LA May Sit Stars Against Magic

After a tough 132-127 overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings, your Los Angeles Lakers now look ahead to a home matchup with the Orlando Magic, who are off to a 2-0 start with an average margin of victory of 17.5 points.

While they've only played the Rockets and Trail Blazers, Orlando is a young, emerging team, that ended last season well, improved their roster in the offseason, and has multiple scorers that can put up 20 to 30 points on any given night.

While a bounce back from Sunday night's loss would be nice, entering just the 4th game of the season, the Lakers have already begun discussing load management.

Darvin Ham on if the Lakers have decided on the availability of LeBron, AD, etc., tomorrow with the Lakers playing Orlando in the second night of a back-to-back: "Not as of yet."
— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) October 30, 2023

Ham's comment relates to the Lakers potentially sitting LeBron and/or Anthony Davis, as they enter a back-to-back coming off of an overtime game.

The game being at home certainly improves their odds of playing, but given their track record of sitting games out in the past, along with their injury histories, letting them hold off until their November 1st matchup with the Clippers could be the best option.

The NBA's new resting rule would act as an obstruction to this for most teams, as it's no longer allowed to sit a team's two best players unless at least one of them is injured.

LeBron, however, is an exception to the rule, as "the league [pre-approved] load management for stars who are 35 years old by opening night or have amassed 34,000 regular-season minutes or a combined 1,000 regular-season and playoff games" (per Daniel Chavkin of Sports Illustrated).

Therefore, AD would classify as the star that's allowed to sit (teams are permitted to sit one), and LeBron being an exception to the rule, allows them both to sit out at once.

Given the team's lackluster performance to start the season – having struggled to beat a Suns team without 2 of their 3 best players and losing their other two games, resting against an emerging Magic team probably isn't the best idea, especially with matchups against the Clippers, Heat, and Suns in 3 of their following 5 games.

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