Injury woes for the Lakers continue

By Jason Wojciechowski on February 20, 2007 at 2:50 PM

I don't know what the hell Vladimir Radmonovic was doing in Park City, Utah, but he apparently slipped and fell there, separating his shoulder. He'll be out for about 8 weeks. By my count, that's until around the 17th of April. The Lakers' last regular season game is on the 18th. Fighting off rust, particularly on his shooting shoulder, is going to be a tough task to undertake during the playoffs.

That's assuming the Lakers don't continue their slide right on out of the playoffs. They're now essentially out of small forwards, and big(-ish) men in general: Andrew Bynum is already carrying the entire load at center; Ronny Turiaf is a power forward who's having to play against centers because there is no one else after Bynum; Lamar Odom; and Brian Cook. Unless the Lakers go really small and push Maurice Evans into the starting lineup as a small forward-type, three of those four guys are going to be starting every night, which doesn't leave much for the bench.

I really miss Chris Mihm.

The rumors are swirling about Jason Kidd, but given the Lakers' size problems at this point, and given the fact that their most attractive asset is probably Bynum, I'm not sure he's a fit right now.

No one's talked about Kevin Garnett in a while, but if he's still out there, he'd obviously help - except that it'd probably take Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum to get him.

I'm firmly convinced that things will get better when Luke Walton comes back. The Lakers are 3-8 since he went down, 3-9 if you count the loss to Charlotte on the night he got hurt. That's ugly.