Wayne Ellington On The Mend

Reinforcements could be en route for the struggling 1-2 Lakers!

Wayne Ellington, one of the many veterans the Lakers nabbed in free agency on a veteran's minimum deal, could make his 2021-22 regular season debut for the Purple and Gold tonight.

Per Lakers beat reporter Jovan Buha (via Twitter), Ellington's availability for this evening's matchup with the San Antonio Spurs at the AT&T Center has been bumped from "out" to "questionable." Ellington, 33, has been struggling with a left hamstring injury.

Frank Vogel had mentioned this weekend that he hoped Ellington would be available for LA at some point this week, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN (via Twitter). Prior to the start of the season, Ellington had been the anticipated starting shooting guard on the Los Angeles depth chart. Ellington started at the two during the Lakers' first pair of preseason games, before suffering the hamstring injury around October 12th. Kent Bazemore, essentially a mildly younger Wayne Ellington with a more erratic free throw conversion rate (historically), is filling that role for now.

Ellington, one of many former Lakers to re-sign with the club this season (he was a part-time starter on the ill-fated 2014-15 club), is a 13-season NBA vet. With the Pistons last year, he averaged 9.6 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game across 22 minutes. Most importantly for this year's Lakers team, Ellington connected on an elite 42.2% of his 2.5 three-point attempts per night. He also shot 44.1% from the field and made 80% of his 0.8 free throw attempts a game.

The 6'4" North Carolina product could be a key contributor on a Lakers club desperate for two-way perimeter help. He holds career averages of 8.1 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.1 assists across 727 games, to go along with a slash line of .410/.382/.843.

As our AJ Gonzalez previously wrote, Lakers All-Star forward LeBron James remains questionable for tonight's contest with a lower body injury. In order of salary, guards Talen Horton-Tucker and Kendrick Nunn, plus forward Trevor Ariza, have all been ruled unavailable for tonight's contest, reports Buha.