Ronnie Price is done for the season
Reporting from SALT LAKE CITY — Guard Ronnie Price, whom Lakers Coach Byron Scott has considered one of his toughest players and best defenders, is done for the rest of the season after having successful surgery to remove bone spurs and bone chips from his right elbow Wednesday.
The Lakers said Price, 31, is expected to be out approximately six to eight weeks, but Scott said that actually means Price will “be out for the year” considering the Lakers have only 26 regular-season games left.
Price, who’ll be an unrestricted free agent this summer, appeared in 43 games for the Lakers and averaged 5.1 points and 3.8 assists in 22.8 minutes a game.
“If he’s healthy after seven or eight weeks, we’ll probably have about three or four games left,” Scott said. “So there’s probably no need” to bring Price back.
Young out
Nick Young didn’t play against the Jazz because of a swollen left knee.
Young said his knee began to bother him after Sunday night’s game against the Boston Celtics.
The Lakers don’t play again until Friday night against Milwaukee, but Young isn’t sure if he’ll be able to play.
“I’m going to wait until the swelling goes down,” Young said.
Scott lukewarm on analytics
A recent ESPN article claimed that the Lakers are among the few nonbelievers in the analytical movement going on in the NBA.
Scott said he wouldn’t “deem it true” that the Lakers don’t believe in analytics because there are people in the organization who like it and use it.
“I’m just not one of them,” Scott said. “I listen to it and all that stuff and take it into consideration, but I’m still just old school. But we have some guys that are real big in the analytical part of basketball.
Scott, who gets the advanced stats “on a weekly basis,” said his assistant coaches, Mark Madsen, Thomas Scott and Larry Lewis, are into analytics.
“Like I’ve said, they bring it all to me, I look at it and evaluate it and I do what I want to do as a head coach. I don’t knock people who believe in it. That’s their prerogative. I’m just one who is an old-school type guy.”
Twitter: @BA_Turner
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