Gabe Vincent Doing On-Court Work; Aiming For Mid-To-Late March Return

The Los Angeles Lakers have been without their marquee free agent signing for nearly the entire season. In the summer of 2023, the Lakers agreed to terms on a three-year, $33 million contract with Gabe Vincent from the Miami Heat.

It was their biggest signing of the summer, using their mid-level exception to bring in the reigning Eastern Conference championship guard.

But a knee injury has limited Vincent to only five games this season, forcing the Lakers to go out and sign Spencer Dinwiddie off of the buyout market in the meantime. Dinwiddie has provided meaningful minutes off the bench as a ball-handler and defender, all minutes that likely would have gone to a healthy Vincent. All the while, the Lakers have not gone beyond a late March projected return for the defensive-minded guard.

L.A. is waiting until next week to give a more significant update on Vincent’s status, but as things stand, it appears that mid-to-late March return projection is still the hope within the organization, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania on FanDuel TV’s Run It Back:

“Gabe Vincent is doing more and more on the court. The Lakers will know more I think next week, where Gabe Vincent stands. But barring any setbacks, his hope is still mid to late March to get back in the lineup for the Lakers. They can still use another guard in the backcourt, but I will say, last night, Spencer Dinwiddie came in there. It’s clear the starting rotation, the starting lineup, there’s a lot of usage that’s going around right now, D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, LeBron James, obviously the ball is in their hands. Spencer Dinwiddie came in last night and defensively stepped up, had that block on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, had the layup in transition, had a few assists as well in that limited role. I think off the bench what you’re seeing is players starting to figure out their role. Taurean Prince is now coming off the bench and playing around 15-20 minutes, spotting up and making 3s. Spencer Dinwiddie is really serving as a 3-and-D guard off that bench. And then Gabe Vincent you want to kind of change the tempo, change the pace. That’s why they signed him from Miami so the hope is barring any setbacks, a return at some point here over the next few weeks.”

Lakers head coach Darvin Ham said on Monday night that there will be a status update on Vincent sometime next week. The same goes for Jarred Vanderbilt, who has also missed a significant chunk of the season with foot and heel issues. Getting those two players back would be huge for a Lakers team that has struggled defensively.

Gabe Vincent hadn’t progressed to on-court work in recent update

Vincent appears to have made significant progress over the last week because as of Feb. 28, Ham revealed that Vincent had yet to progress to on-court work.