There has been a lot of activity within and around the NBA on Thursday with the league seemingly on the brink of a full-blown COVID-19 outbreak. The Los Angeles Lakers have been one of the hardest-hit teams, with LA losing a handful of players due to the league's health and safety protocols.
In a surprising turn of events, however, a couple of Lakers players have now been removed from the league's protocols despite not being able to satisfy the mandatory quarantine period. Russell Westbrook and Malik Monk have both tested out of the health and safety protocols and are now set to re-join their squad.
Monk, though, has reportedly not yet been cleared to take the court for the Lakers on Friday when they face off against the Minnesota Timberwolves (h/t ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski):
Lakers guard Malik Monk was cleared to fly from Los Angeles to Minnesota to join the team for tonight's game, but ultimately was not cleared to play the game, sources tell ESPN. Russell Westbrook flew from Dallas to Minnesota today after testing out of protocols, per sources.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 17, 2021




These developments have prompted a cryptic reaction from Monk himself who resorted to the use of emojis to express his thoughts about all this:
😒😒😒
— Malik Monk (@AhmadMonk) December 17, 2021
Neither the Lakers nor the NBA has provided the full details as to why Westbrook and Monk were allowed to exit the health and safety protocols. It is worth noting, though, that LeBron James went through a similar experience wherein it was reported that he initially yielded a false-positive test result. At this point, we can only assume that it's probably the same case for both Monk and Westbrook.