If you were thinking things couldn’t get any worse for the Lakers, well, you’re wrong.
Point guard Steve Nash had an MRI on Saturday that revealed a fracture in his lower left leg that will keep him on the sidelines for at least another week.
The team said Nash has a small fracture in the head of his left fibula, the result of a collision with Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard in Wednesday’s loss. Nash sat out Friday’s loss to the down-the-hall Clippers that dumped the Lakers to 0-3 for the first time since 1978, the year Kobe Bryant was born.
Since training camp opened just over a month ago, here is the laundry list of Lakers’ woes:
- Dwight Howard missed all of training camp and virtually all of the preseason while recovering from offseason back surgery. He has played in all three games thus far but clearly is not 100 percent.
- The Lakers hired Eddie Jordan as an assistant coach and have tried to implement his Princeton offense with disastrous results thus far.
- The Lakers went 0-8 in the preseason. It’s probably worth mentioning that no team has ever gone winless in the preseason and won the NBA championship.
- Kobe Bryant suffered a sprained foot in preseason but also has played in all three games. He left Friday’s loss to the Clippers in a walking boot.
Nash, 38, was supposed to give the Lakers a legitimate point guard and lessen the ballhandling duties on Bryant.
The offseason deals for Nash and Howard had some folks talking about 70 wins for the Lakers. Instead, three games into the season there already are questions about the future of coach Mike Brown.