Backup center Mohamed Bamba sustained a high left ankle sprain and will be re-evaluated in about four weeks, the Lakers announced (Twitter link via Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times).
Bamba only played two minutes in Sunday’s victory over Golden State and was out for Tuesday’s win against Memphis.
There’s a good chance that Bamba could miss the rest of the regular season. If he came back in exactly four weeks, which seems unlikely given he’d almost certainly need some time to ramp up his conditioning, the Lakers would have just two regular-season games left on their schedule, home games against Phoenix and Utah.
A trade-deadline acquisition from Orlando, the 24-year-old has averaged 4.4 PPG and 5.3 RPG in seven games (11.6 MPG) with the Lakers, posting a .417/.333/.545 shooting line. In 40 games (17.0 MPG) with the Magic this season, he averaged 7.3 PPG, 4.6 RPG and 1.0 BPG on .495/.398/.686 shooting.
The No. 6 overall pick in the 2018 draft, Bamba signed a two-year, $20.6M contract last offseason after posting career highs in multiple categories in ’21-22. However, he was third on Orlando’s center depth chart for most of ’22-23, and his salary for next season is non-guaranteed.
Bamba’s injury further depletes the Lakers' frontcourt depth, as LeBron James is also sidelined with a foot injury. With them both out, Anthony Davis, Troy Brown, Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura and Wenyen Gabriel should continue to see the bulk of the minutes at forward and center.
The Lakers do have an opening on their 15-man standard roster, so they could sign someone without making a corresponding roster move. Los Angeles is currently 32-34, the No. 9 seed in the West.
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