|
PHOENIX -- Shock. Disappointment. Hurt. Los Angeles Lakers coach Byron Scott said his team felt those emotions and more in the wake of Julius Randle suffering a broken leg that the team expects will sideline the rookie forward for the remainder of the season. Randle, the team's top draft choice and seventh overall pick in June, suffered the injury midway through the fourth quarter of the Lakers' season-opening loss Tuesday to the Houston Rockets.  "I didn't get a whole lot of sleep just thinking about the young fella," Scott said before the Lakers faced the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday. "[I was] talking to him after the game, basically just holding him and listening to him cry and trying to console him as much as possible. It's a tough situation.
"[The] young man obviously has a promising future. We're going to miss him for a little while, but we have to regroup. We have to basically move on, as crazy as it sounds. We have to move on." Randle had surgery Wednesday, after which the team announced that it was unlikely that the 19-year-old would play again this season "We've got to realize, he's 19 years old," Scott said. "We don't know how he's going to react. Obviously, he was very disappointed last night and very hurt." Scott said he expects forward Ed Davis to play more minutes in Randle's absence. Looking at the footage, Scott said he didn't expect the injury to be that severe. Randle drove to the basket, his right foot appeared to buckle, and he collapsed. After several minutes, he was carted off the floor on a stretcher. "He got bumped in midair, but it wasn't like he collided with anybody," Scott said. "It just kind of looked like his left foot kind of kicked his right leg and he comes down and he just grabbed his leg. I don't know if it was a freak accident or what, but it was something that just didn't look that bad to end up being as bad as it is." Randle marks the second Lakers player in as many weeks that the team has said would likely miss the season because of health issues. The Lakers ruled out 40-year-old point guard Steve Nash last week because of recurring back issues. Keeping morale high, especially amid a season that was already short on optimism, will be a tall task for Scott, who is in his first season as Lakers coach. "I'm a very upbeat person, very positive, very glass-is-half-full instead of half-empty type guy," Scott said. "So every day that [the players] see me, that's the way that I am. I try to keep that same type of attitude every single day. "Being the leader of the team, you have to have that type of attitude, because once they see you're a little down or that you're not feeling the same way that they're feeling, being that they're down or up, whatever the case may be, they kind of take their hint from their leader."
|
