The Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets will play their opening game of the 2023–24 regular season on Tuesday night at Ball Arena in Colorado.
Their injury report for the match has been released (via Daniel Starkand of Lakers Nation).
Jalen Hood-Schifino, Jarred Vanderbilt, Alex Fudge, D’Moi Hodge, and Colin Castleton are all out for the Lakers.
Hood-Schifino, an Indiana native who was selected with the 17th overall choice in the 2023 NBA Draft, is an important role player for Vanderbilt. In his final season, he averaged 7.9 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.1 steals per game.
In the meantime, Fudge, Hodge, and Castleton are all passive two-way players.
The Lakers will miss having Vanderbilt, but they will still start all of their best players, including LeBron James, D’Angelo Russell, and Anthony Davis.
With a 43-39 record, the Lakers finished as the seventh seed in the Western Conference the previous season.
They defeated the Golden State Warriors (second round), the Minnesota Timberwolves (play-in tournament), and the Memphis Grizzlies (first round), but the Nuggets swept them in the Conference Finals.
They weren’t a good squad in the first half of the season, but transactions that strengthened the roster had a significant impact, therefore the season was still a big success.
The Nuggets, on the other hand, were the top seed in the Western Conference and, following their victory against the Lakers, defeated Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat to win the 2023 NBA Championship (in five games).
They will receive their championship rings on Tuesday.
