All is not well by any means in Los Angeles at the moment. The Lakers were blown out by the Sacramento Kings for the second time this preseason, as they followed up their 30-point defeat in the first game between these two by losing 133-86 in what was their final preseason game.
That meant that the Lakers finished their preseason with a 1-5 record, which is actually an improvement on last season where they went 0-6. As if the record wasn’t bad enough, the Lakers suffered a big blow when Dennis Schroder was ruled out with a finger injury prior to the game and they got more bad news during the game, as Russell Westbrook had to head to the locker room in the first quarter.
NBA Fans React To Russell Westbrook Suffering A Hamstring Injury
The Lakers had already caused some waves prior to the game when reports emerged that Westbrook was going to come off the bench, but the experiment didn’t last long. He hobbled off to the locker room toward the end of the first quarter with what has been revealed to be a left hamstring injury and didn’t return.
Lakers’ Russell Westbrook has a left hamstring injury and won’t return to game tonight vs. Kings.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) October 15, 2022
NBA fans reacted to the news as they wondered about the consequences of Russ potentially facing some time on the sidelines.
“Scapegoat is injured time for us to get exposed for real.”
“Lakers fans don’t deserve him he’s been getting so much undeserved hate”
“he might have played his last game ever for the Lakers”
“He’s done, the Lakers are done.”
“3 injuries and the season hasn’t even started. Sounds like laker basketball to me”
“man ♂️ ♂️ , hope it’s not too serious”
“Their injury report is already half the damn roster”
“Lakers roster in mid-season form.”
“Lakers getting cooked by the Kings and Russ only got 5 minutes. Who they blaming?”
“I feel for Russ man”
“Getting smoked and another injury #Lakers”
“It’s time they’ll notice they still suck when he’s out”
“Meanwhile in La La Land… yikes. Hope Russ is okay but this situation is bordering disaster.”
“Nunn/Reaves/PatBev/Lonnie Walker is a hilarious backcourt”
“Endless pain man.”
“Welp, Lakers are doomed”
“Ngl he might be done he already wasn’t playing well now he gotta recover from this , look what happened to harden but at least harden was playing before he got a hamstring”
“Hopefully it isn’t serious I genuinely don’t know if this team if going to be considerably better than last year”
“Lakers season is already falling apart and it hasn’t started yet”
This might well be the last time we see Westbrook in a Lakers jersey, as the team is expected to re-open trade talks for him. It would be a sad way to go out, but it was clear there was not going to be a happy ending for Russ in LA, anyway.
We can just hope that this injury isn’t too serious, but the full extent of it won’t be known for a while. As for the Lakers, we saw that not having Westbrook on the court isn’t going to magically solve all their problems. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are great, but the rest of the roster doesn’t really seem to be all that good at the moment. It is going to be trial by fire when they head off to face the Golden State Warriors on opening night and things could get ugly.
