The Los Angeles Lakers will have to find a way to carry on without their most valuable player.
We’re talking, of course, about Larry Nance Jr.
Nance suffered a bone bruise in his left knee, and as relayed by ESPN.com’s Baxter Holmes, there is no timetable for his return:
Lakers forward Larry Nance Jr. will be sidelined indefinitely because of a bone bruise in his left knee, which an MRI exam revealed Wednesday in Miami, the team announced.
However, further results of the exam were inconclusive due to swelling in the knee, so Nance will be re-examined Sunday in Los Angeles by team physician Dr. David McAllister of UCLA Health.
This “out indefinitely” business could be a precautionary measure, but the Lakers are smart to play the long game. Nance is only 23 years old, and, well, we weren’t kidding about him being their most valuable player.
According to Basketball-Reference’s box plus-minus metric, Nance is the lone Lakers player who profiles as an above-average contributor on both sides of the floor. And that, for the record, is a very big deal when you’re talking about a player on a team knee-deep in an extensive rebuild.
