After missing the past three games with a right groin strain, Lakers guard Austin Reaves has been upgraded to questionable for Monday’s contest in Charlotte, tweets Law Murray of The Athletic.
Reaves had been on a tear to open 2025/26 prior to the injury, averaging 31.1 points, 9.3 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals on .489/.344/.903 shooting in seven games (37.9 MPG). He’s widely expected to become an unrestricted free agent in 2026 — he holds a $14.9MM player option for next season he’s virtually certain to decline.
For the Hornets, star point guard LaMelo Ball will miss his fourth straight contest with a right ankle impingement, while forward Miles Bridges is questionable due to back spasms, per the team (Twitter link).
Here are a few more injury-related notes from around the NBA:
- Mavericks big men Anthony Davis (left calf strain) and Daniel Gafford (right ankle sprain) are both questionable for Monday’s game against Milwaukee, as Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal relays (via Twitter). Davis, a 10-time All-Star, has missed the past five games for the Mavs. Gafford, meanwhile, aggravated his right ankle sprain — an injury he initially sustained on the first day of training camp — during Friday’s loss to Memphis, but was able to play 19 minutes in Saturday’s victory at Washington.
- Fifth-year guard Josh Giddey is off to a strong start for the Bulls, averaging 21.4 PPG, 9.6 RPG, 9.3 APG and 1.0 SPG on .463/.385/.755 shooting in nine games (34.1 MPG). However, he sprained his right ankle on Saturday when he was crossed over by Cavs forward De’Andre Hunter (YouTube link), and has been listed as questionable for Monday’s game vs. San Antonio, according to Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic (Twitter link).
- The Pacers will be without nine players on Sunday at Golden State, the team announced (via Twitter). The latest additions to the injury report are starting forwards Aaron Nesmith (right forearm contusion) and Pascal Siakam, who is resting on the second night of a back-to-back — Indiana lost in Denver on Saturday. The Pacers have two players (Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Cody Martin) on 10-day hardship contracts as a result of the team’s surplus of injuries.
The Pacers are leaning hard into their tank already. It’s particularly shameless in their case coming off a finals appearance.
IND was too cheap to keep Turner and with the injuries they are naturally too bad, don’t think they can do any better than this, they stink!
I couldn’t blame them about Turner. He’s solid, but I would not want to pay him what Milwaukee is paying him. I just don’t see him as that caliber of player.
Legitimate injuries what do you expect from them.
I expect Siakam not to be load managing in week 3 of the season. Prepare for a disgusting shameless tank job worse than what the Sixers did a year ago, with all sorts of players being held out of games as it gets deeper into the szn.
Yeah Pacers are all about the draft now. There should be a nice Center in top 10.
So you expect for Siakam to carry the team with 5 or 6 players out. Wear himself out and maybe get injured too. There’s a big difference between the Pacers and Sixers and if you don’t understand then that’s a you problem.
Playing a 5-5 Warriors team without Steph, I expect them to have some pride and put up some resistance. The “maybe get injured” line is bizarre… these guys are paid to play basketball and that includes the risk of injury every time they step on a court. Siakam isn’t nursing any injury to my knowledge, nor was any reported. There’s no reason to give the Pacers a break here.