Lakers lose backup big man for start of season

New Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick wants the team to add another center. For at least the beginning of the season, they'll be losing one instead.

Center Christian Wood missed the last two months of the season for Los Angeles with a knee injury. But he suffered a setback recently and had arthroscopic surgery on Monday. It's the second procedure on that knee, with the initial surgery taking place in March. The team won't even reevaluate Wood until eight weeks from now, at which point the Lakers will already be eight games into the season.

Wood called it a "Minor setback for a Major comeback" in a post on X.

In a July radio interview , Redick said he wanted the Lakers to add a "big, bruising center" to play alongside Anthony Davis. That was the Lakers' strategy on the way to their 2020 title, pairing AD with centers Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee. That was also how Steve Kerr used Davis during the Olympics, primarily playing him next to Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo.

Wood isn't exactly a bruising center, but neither is the Lakers' other backup option, the 220-pound Jaxson Hayes. They have a defensive-minded power forward in Jarred Vanderbilt, but he's still recovering from a foot injury suffered in February, and his availability for training camp and the preseason is still unknown.

The Lakers have succeeded in playing an unconventional style for their era, most eschewing the three-pointer (28th in the NBA in three-point attempts) while also giving up the third-most three-pointers. Instead, they focus on keeping teams out of the paint while taking 64.2 percent of their attempts from two-point range, third in the league.

With that approach, the team needs a big to play alongside Davis and spell him when he sits. Especially since Davis and LeBron James had a busy summer playing for Team USA and may need to limit their minutes.

Expect more rumblings than usual — even by Lakers standards — about trades for centers, whether it's the team's rumored interest in Washington Wizards center Jonas Valanciunas or the Orlando Magic's Wendell Carter Jr.

Davis and James were extremely healthy last season. But if their backup bigs can't get healthy themselves, it could end up a long, tiring season in Los Angeles.