LOS ANGELES — Starting center Deandre Ayton will sit out of the Lakers’ Sunday home game against the Miami Heat because of a back ailment.
Ayton was ruled out because of back spasms, the same ailment that led to him not playing in the second half of Friday’s road win over the Memphis Grizzlies.
The 27-year-old 7-footer entered Sunday as probable before being downgraded to questionable two hours before tipoff, eventually being ruled out about an hour before the game started.
“He’s still dealing with some tightness and spasms in that mid-back,” Coach JJ Redick said pregame.
Ayton (nine points in 17 minutes) stayed back near the Lakers’ locker room after halftime during the game against the Grizzlies, getting his back tended to by the team’s medical team before rejoining the team on the bench during the fourth.
Redick said Ayton was available to play in the fourth quarter against Memphis, but didn’t want to “risk it,”. Ayton told reporters in the locker room postgame that he was dealing with the back spasms Friday morning but wanted to play through them. He aggravated his back on an alley-oop attempt in the first half against the Grizzlies.
Sunday was the first missed game for Ayton, who averaged 14.8 points (62.7% shooting), 7.8 rebounds and 1.2 assists in the first six games (31.5 minutes)
Jaxson Hayes started on Sunday, in place of Ayton, alongside Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, Marcus Smart and Rui Hachimura.
TEAM USA
Erik Spoelstra is not only the Heat’s coach, but in mid-October, he was named the head coach of the USA men’s national team through 2028 after being an assistant coach under Golden State Warriors coach at the 2024 Paris Olympics and 2023 FIBA World Cup
Spoelstra was also the head coach for the Team USA Select Team that trained alongside the 2020 Men’s National Team ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
While he responded “not yet” to whether the Heat’s trip to Los Angeles would also be an opportunity to evaluate Austin Reaves, who played for Team USA during the 2023 World Cup, Spoelstra spoke positively about the fifth-year guard. Reaves entered Sunday averaging 32 points, nine assists and 5.3 rebounds.
“I really enjoyed my time working with him as an assistant coach with the World Cup team,” Spoelstra said. “What an experience that was, and it was humbling. The FIBA game is different, and that really was important for all of us to go through that as a coaching staff to prepare us for the Olympics the next year. But Austin was a joy. He brings a gym to life. He was a crowd favorite over there, had some great moments. He’s a competitor as well; you have to love that about him. And what he’s doing this year is really remarkable.”
DODGERS TALK
Less than 24 hours before Lakers-Heat tipped off, Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter was at Rogers Centre in Toronto, hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy in celebration of his team’s Game 7 World Series victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.
And on Sunday night, he was at Crypto.com Arena, sitting baseline to watch the team he officially became the controlling owner of on Thursday after the Buss family sold their majority ownership stake in the Lakers to Walter.
“We spoke the other day, just sent him a note, making the official congrats,” Redick said when asked pregame about Walter. “He has a real desire to learn about this. He’s obviously a very intelligent man, but it’s two different sports, and how you build teams are different. I’ve said this for probably the last 10, 15 years, and I played baseball growing up. It was my first love. And baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team sport. The impact of star players, a guy like Luka, a guy like LeBron [James], a guy like AR, it’s just different than any other sport.”
