D’Angelo Russell exits game vs. Warriors with right ankle injury, considered day-to-day

Despite being a recent addition, D’Angelo Russell was struck by the Lakers injury bug against the Warriors as he exited the game and did not return with a sprained ankle.

D’Angelo Russell was the latest Laker to suffer an injury, exiting Thursday’s contest against the Warriors with a right ankle injury, proving not even newly-acquired Lakers are immune to the inescapable fate of suffering an injury at some point this season.

Russell suffered the injury during the first quarter of the game.

After the game, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham said Russell would be reevaluated on Friday.

It was a rather freak injury, which seems to be a recurring trend for the Lakers, that led to Russell eventually exiting the game. As he was inbounding the ball, Russell stepped on the foot of Donte DiVincenzo, who had just scored on the player before his momentum carried him out-of-bounds.

The optimistic outlook is that Russell did continue playing after suffering the injury, staying on the court for a little more than a minute before coming out. But after exiting, Russell went to the locker room and was eventually ruled out.

At the start of the second half, Chris Haynes gave an update on D’Lo’s status which was largely positive news for the Lakers.

After the game, D’Angelo Russell spoke to reporters about how his ankle was feeling and what his expectations were for how long he may be out.

With a compacted schedule in the coming week, the Lakers will certainly need a healthy D’Angelo Russell. The team is off for two days before playing in Dallas, which could also be a benefit to the Lakers to allow an extra day for Russell to get treatment.

The good news is this doesn’t appear to be a serious injury, which is a crisis dodged for the Lakers as they look to push for the playoffs.

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