The Los Angeles Lakers return home against the Philadelphia 76ers after a tough five-game road trip that saw the Lakers go 1-4 with some frustrations boiling over. But with Friday’s game approaching, the Lakers are hoping to have Anthony Davis back in the lineup amid a foot injury.
The foot injury is something that Anthony Davis has been dealing with since last season, per ESPN's Shams Charania. He was on the Lakers’ injury report ahead of the final game of their road trip against the Memphis Grizzlies and ended up missing his first game of the season.
Charania reports that the Lakers are hopeful that Davis can play against the 76ers after not putting any pressure on his foot for two days. It would be a major blow for the Lakers if Davis is sidelined for any period due to the injury. They struggled mightily against the Grizzlies without him.
But the Lakers have had issues throughout this road trip, even with Davis in the lineup. The only time they’ve looked like the team that started 3-0 was against the Toronto Raptors. But even in that game, they blew a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter, albeit holding on to win.
Anthony Davis putting up MVP numbers for the Lakers
When the Lakers began the 2024-25 season with a 3-0 record, LeBron James called Anthony Davis the team’s focal point offensively and defensively. He was being talked about as being in the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year conversations.
Those talks might have stalled a bit now, given the Lakers’ recent road trip, but there’s no denying the impact Davis has had in the early goings of this season.
During the Lakers’ loss to the Detroit Pistons, the last game he played in, he put up 37 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Through the team’s first seven games of the season, Davis has been averaging a league-leading 32.6 points, 11.6 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.4 blocked shots with splits of 57.1 percent shooting from the field, 16.7 percent shooting from the three-point line and 78.6 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
While he’s taken some heat for his supposed injury issues throughout his career, Davis is coming a season during which he appeared in 76 games. That’s the most number of games he’s played in since the 2017-18 season when he appeared in 75 games for the New Orleans Pelicans.
If the Lakers can rebound from this brutal road trip and start stringing together more wins, the MVP talks will heat up again.