Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome in to the Lakers Nation.com podcast.

My name's Trevor Lane, and it's game day. Lakers Kings 7 p.m. Pacific time tonight. The Lakers need to get back in the win column in their first game of a back to back tomorrow. They'll take on the Atlanta Hawks. But tonight up in Sacramento to play the Kings, I'll be live right here on the Lakers Nation.com YouTube channel breaking down the game doing a little play by play again 7 p.m.

at the Kings. I'll be live right here on the Lakers Nation.com YouTube channel breaking down the game, doing a little play by play against 7 p.m. and same time, come hang out. It's like a party, like I always say. We'll talk some Lakers basketball, take some questions, some comments, and then of course, right after the game, we'll have our live post game show. Today, I want to get into the injury report, an important update for the Lakers, which I think changes quite a bit for them. Plus, we'll take a look at some of the keys to victories. Let's dive right in. Don't forget, subscribe right here to thelakersnation.com YouTube channel. Follow us over on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts as well. And if you wouldn't mind, kick us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, great way to help out the show. All right. So the big news, the Lakers injury report is out. And Rui Hachamura does not appear on the injury report at all. Not even probable, not questionable, nothing. Rui Hachamura is back tonight. That is what that means. Rui Huchamura back in action

tonight. He's missed the last six games for the Los Angeles Lakers due to a CAF issue. I want to talk

about what the impact of Rui coming back to this game is going to be. First, I want to address one

thing real quick. I'm seeing a lot of comments, a lot of people asking, saying, man, we really miss Austin Reeves. When is he coming back? Again, I'm going to stick with Austin probably looking at somewhere around the All-Star break. I know it feels like he's been out for a while already, but we've got a little ways to go. Figure probably another month because he's not going to get re-evaluated

until somewhere around the end of this month. And then once a player gets re-evaluated, even if he gets the green light, he's going to need some ramp up time before he's actually back into a game. So I think the safest way to look at it is just sometime around the All-Star break, which is mid-February, maybe even after the All-Star break

if the Lakers really want to play it safe.

So unfortunately, Austin will not be back

in a moment. around the all-star break, which is mid-February, maybe even after the all-star break,

if the Lakers really want to play it safe. So unfortunately, Austin will not be back in action anytime soon. We're still at least weeks away, more realistically, a month, maybe a bit more

away from seeing Austin Reeves back out there on the floor. But let's talk about Ruey,

the good news, the positive news, some rare positive

news on the injury front for this Lakers team. Austin Reeves and Adieu Thero will be the only

players missing for the Lakers at this point. J.J. Reddick after practice yesterday, as our editor

extraordinary Daniel Starkand shared, did say that Rui was a full participant in practice. He's back and then said Rui will come off the bench since he'll be on a minute's restriction. He has not yet decided if Hacham Ruhl will return to the starting lineup once the minutes restriction is lifted. Now, we've talked about this quite a bit here on the Lakers Nation.com YouTube channel. We've talked about it a bit over on Lakers Collective as well,

but I am 100% against Rui Hutchamara returning to the starting lineup.

But here's something that I need to clarify.

Is the notion that that is an anti-Rui take or opinion to have?

And it is not.

I like Rui a lot.

I think he's a very important player for this Lakers team.

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