{"id":169639,"date":"2025-12-12T20:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=169639"},"modified":"2025-12-12T20:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:53:11","slug":"lakers-star-suffers-setback-amid-career-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/12\/12\/lakers-star-suffers-setback-amid-career-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Star Suffers Setback Amid Career Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if losing three of their last five games wasn\u2019t enough, the Los Angeles Lakers have been dealt yet another blow in the injury department. <\/span>Austin Reaves<\/span><\/a> will reportedly miss one week due to a \u201cmild\u201d calf strain, according to ESPN\u2019s Dave McMenamin<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lakers Star Suffers Setback Amid Career Year<\/b><\/h2>\n

Lakers Struggles Continue<\/b><\/h3>\n

Reaves had been averaging career highs across the board prior to this injury. In 21 games, he averaged 27.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 6.7 assists on .503\/.369\/.875 splits. He dropped a <\/span>career-best 51 points<\/span><\/a> against the Sacramento Kings on Oct. 26 and recently had a <\/span>44-point double-double<\/span><\/a> in LA\u2019s Dec. 6 win over the Toronto Raptors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Head coach JJ Redick told ESPN that the <\/span>Lakers\u2019 recent road trip<\/span><\/a> was \u201cvery taxing <\/span>in terms of [Reaves\u2019] both intensity and workload.\u201d The team\u2019s upcoming slate may do them no favors either, facing the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and LA Clippers in away contests<\/span><\/p>\n

With the 27-year-old performing so well <\/span>aside from two recent letdowns<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019s imperative <\/span>that the Lakers manage his health wisely to maintain\u2014and build upon\u2014their <\/span>fourth-place standing in the West<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Dec
Dec 10, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves (15) is fouled by San Antonio Spurs forward Harrison Barnes (40) as he makes a shot during the second half at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Signs of Hope with Marcus Smart<\/b><\/h3>\n

With Reaves down for the count, it\u2019s likely that <\/span>Marcus Smart<\/span><\/a> returns to the first unit for the time being. The 31-year-old is coming off a <\/span>scintillating season-high performance<\/span><\/a> against the San Antonio Spurs where he canned eight threes en route to 26 points off the bench, a bright spot despite LA\u2019s elimination from the Emirates NBA Cup. Some have used that game to advocate for <\/span>Smart<\/span><\/a> to permanently start, <\/span>a suggestion that may not be off the table<\/span><\/a> considering their recent defensive struggles. For now, however, the Lakers will probably evaluate Smart\u2019s performances in Reaves\u2019 absence before making such a drastic change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if losing three of their last five games wasn\u2019t enough, the Los Angeles Lakers have been dealt yet another blow in the injury department. Austin Reaves will reportedly miss one week due to a \u201cmild\u201d calf strain, according to ESPN\u2019s Dave McMenamin. Lakers Star Suffers Setback Amid Career Year Lakers Struggles Continue Reaves had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4265,"featured_media":169640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,26,62,3],"tags":[4556,2279,428],"class_list":["post-169639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-austin-reaves","tag-jj-redick","tag-marcus-smart"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169639"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169645,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169639\/revisions\/169645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}