Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt suffered a full dislocation of his right pinky finger during Game 1 of their series against the Thunder on Tuesday, ESPN’s Shams Charania tweets.
As The California Post’s Khobi Price writes, Vanderbilt was injured during the first half attempting to block an alley-oop for Chet Holmgren. Vanderbilt’s right pinky hit the backboard as he swiped for the ball.
The 6-foot-8 forward immediately went to the ground in pain, holding his right hand near the Thunder bench. Some Oklahoma City players turned away when they saw Vanderbilt’s hand.
The loss of Vanderbilt would remove a wing/frontcourt option for the underdog Lakers, who are already waiting for superstar Luka Doncic to return from his hamstring injury. The veteran averaged 3.6 points and 4.4 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game against Houston during the first round.
Vanderbilt was benched during the decisive Game 6 after playing just six minutes in Game 5. He appeared in 65 games during the regular season, averaging 4.4 points and 4.5 rebounds per contest.
Oklahoma City went on to win the opener, 108-90. Once Vanderbilt came out in the first half, the Lakers essentially went with an eight-man rotation until garbage time.
Vanderbilt has two years remaining on his four-year, $48MM deal.
SGA with 18 points and 7 turnovers, what a “MVP”
You’re just salty because the warriors are watching from home
Me, and every fan of ethical hoops, yeah sure, it sure does suck the team with the most depth also gets all the calls the warriors and steph never got, all that is enough to make anyone salty, sure
They won Davey. MVP race is already over.
That was a nasty shot. Had to hurt. Considering its the pinky. He should be able to play.
Is Luka coming back ???? Like “Mighty Mouse”
Or is he booked in French Riviera already.
Coming back to Dallas?
Not guaranteed, but given how he avoids Kidd like the plague, I’d have to imagine it will take a few years and a coaching change, likely when the team is a playoff contender w/Coop and this year’s lottery pick, giving Masai the time to clear out the snake from the garden and bring in a coach with a greater culture of trust.
But I do think it’ll happen. LuKai + 2026 1st Rounder + Coop + PJ + D-Live == Dynasty in Dallas! 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
Are you serious with this post? I know it was, Cinco de Mayo, yesterday. Guessing you had one too many shots.
Luka will never go back to that franchise
Then you wake up and realize it was all a dream
Luka might go back to Dallas if there was an owner he liked who owned the team.
Al you can tell all the people who Never played basketball. So now you can’t even have a bad game. I wish a bad game for me was 18 points. Only basketball Davey plays is 2k. They made him a play maker. He will adjust watching film and have less turnovers
Fans can’t talk about real players. They are too busy with their homervision. Sometimes it hurts giving props. You have to respect guys who bring it all the time. Man he’s just getting started 27 yrs old.
The troll and the guy who doesn’t understand what a player option is “understand ball” but the rest of us don’t. If either one of you or Davey or any other person on here really had that much knowledge an NBA team would be paying you for that knowledge.
Only knowledge I got is. Luka is a OneWay Wonder.
Thank you for your input—I’ll file it under “never needed.”
2nd leading scorer. Took a no name Dallas squad to the finals. But yea you’re a better basketball player than Luka. What a joke
“Here I come to Save the Daaay”
Far out, Lebron can still get them past Okc easily
Did you watch the game last night? I’ve never seen worse interior defense, Chet was wide open all game and OKC easily covered the 14 pt spread.
Lebron was excellent with 27 on 71%/50% 4 reb 6 ast and a steal, but with the rest of the Lakers shooting so poorly there was no hope – they couldn’t even win 1 quarter.
Lakers will be fortunate to avoid a sweep.
It was actually kind of sad to see. Asking 41 year old LeBron to carry you through the first round AND through the OKC juggernaut is lunacy. AR won’t be that bad all series bad man that game was hard to watch.
OKC played with their food for 3 quarters. That’s definitely the scariest part.
Yeah I watched it. That’s why I said LeBron. Wait and see. It’s one game. Lakers will beat Okc and LeBron will be the GOAT once and for all
They aren’t winning without a healthy Luka. Even with him maybe they win two gms. Lakers D has been up and down all year. Thunder have a good motion offense. You can’t just key on SGA.
Bron at 41 is unreal lol. I can’t believe he is still playing.
Without Luka, also Reaves, the Lakers have a better chance as those 2 are major liabilitys on the defensive end, despite there offensive games
If anyone, LeBron can do it
Lebron will never be the GOAT. Even he knows it, thats why he won’t stop talking about it.
Lebron/Klutch paid the refs and the awards voters to not give Curry more awards than Lebron. This is fact. Curry should have 4 FMVPs, anyone who watches those series from first to last saw Curry’s value to the team being more than anyone else, and a lot of guys success was because of Curry gravity to begin with. Curry is like NBA Ohtani, with his value on court being 2-way: both what he can do, and how lopsided he makes defenses go to him.
I want some of what you’re smoking postman. Thunder were literally laughing at the Lakers during the game.
Ive dislocated my pinky. Snap it back in and put a finger brace on and get back out there.
Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s one of those injuries that looks way worse than the pain you actually realize.
When you see someone suffer one you grimace, but when it happens to you yourself, it’s like OK, this doesn’t really hurt. It just feels uncomfortable.
I remember doing mine and popping it back in place but after a couple seconds, it contracted back to the dislocated position, which was a funny sensation.
But as you say, a little tape and get back out there. Crooked finger for life and another story to tell about what me and Larry Bird and Koby Bryant have in common lol !!
Kobe didn’t even leave the game when his happened.
Yeah pinkies are maybe the most nothingburger injury to a hooper. Couple of days, maybe he would miss a game or two if there’s swelling or other damage, but otherwise, exactly what you said.
Lakers are going to get ruined if they keep doubling SGA every time. He was making the right read in the 4th quarter. Chet was the hot hand last night. Lakers simply cannot turn the ball over against this team and expect to win last night. Transition defense was pretty good for the most part against OKC but too many live ball turnovers last night. Reeves also needs to play better. They need him to step up even more with Luka being out. I had OKC in 5 but I am not sure anymore since the interior defense was really uninspiring in the 2nd half last night.
The biggest call of the game in my mind was when it was 76-67 and Hayes took the ball and got called for an offensive foul when Jaylen Williams was underneath. If that call went with Lakers, and he makes his Ft, it’s a 2 possession game with a few minutes before the end of the 3rd quarter. It was such a momentum swing play because after that, OKC went on a mini run to close the quarter and had a 11 point lead going into the 4th. They were playing uphill after that.
Jaylen Williams is such a flopper. He’s been doing that since college. I guess it’s a skill but if it’s your number one skill, I guess it gets you some floor time? We definitely can see that not a lot of guys are willing to give up their body like that.
Yeah, that looked like a clear block to me, Hayes already established his momentum and Williams didn’t rotate over. It was a 50/50 call but I would have awarded the offensive player.