Although the immediate outlook for Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma seemed grim following the announcement that a stress reaction would keep him out for most of training camp, both the player and team leadership put a positive outlook on his recovery.
Kuzma said that while the injury has been serious enough for him to rehab over the last five weeks and miss some more time, it’s not a stress fracture that would have had him out even more time.
Meanwhile, Rob Pelinka was very positive in saying that Kuzma has already made a lot of healing progress since he returned from his duty with USA Basketball.
We have a lot of encouragement and hope around the progress Kyle is making and has made since we found out about his injury. So he’s working really closely with the staff and the progress he’s made has been terrific. There’s a whole lot of optimism and not a whole lot of concern or fear. We want to do what’s best for the player and there’s a lot of hope and a lot of good signs with the healing that’s taken place.
From listening to both Kuzma and Pelinka, it does appear that Kuzma shouldn’t miss too much of the regular season, if he misses it at all. All it does sound like is that the Lakers don’t feel the need to rush back one of the few homegrown players they kept after the Anthony Davis trade.
