Austin Reaves’ playoff rehab showed how closely the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers are already starting to overlap under Mark Walter’s sports empire.
The Lakers guard was dealing with a Grade 2 oblique strain, the kind of injury baseball teams are used to managing because of how often it affects hitters and pitchers.
That made the Dodgers’ medical infrastructure a logical place for the Lakers to lean during Reaves’ recovery.
Austin Reaves was sent to the Los Angeles Dodgers during oblique rehab
Yahoo Sports reported that the Los Angeles Lakers told Austin Reaves to spend time with the Los Angeles Dodgers while he was rehabbing his oblique injury during the playoffs.
“According to two league sources, [stay with LA Dodgers] is what the Lakers told Austin Reaves to do while he was rehabbing from an oblique injury during the playoffs.
“That confidence in their medical team, though, is not without reason,” Yahoo Sports reported.
The decision made sense because oblique injuries are far more familiar in baseball than in basketball. Reaves suffered a Grade 2 oblique strain late in the regular season, with reports placing the recovery window at around four to six weeks.
Baseball staffs deal with these injuries constantly because swings, throws, and rotational force can all stress the same area. For the Lakers, sending Reaves into a Dodgers environment meant using a group with deeper day-to-day experience around that specific recovery.
Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers connection gives Austin Reaves move a bigger meaning
The Reaves rehab detail also matters because the Lakers and Dodgers now sit under the same ownership umbrella.
Mark Walter, the Dodgers owner and CEO of TWG Global, agreed to buy a controlling interest in the Lakers from the Buss family in a deal valuing the franchise at $10 billion.
That ownership link has already started to change the Lakers’ structure. Dodgers executives Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi have reportedly been involved as advisers around the Lakers’ front-office transition, bringing the Dodgers’ analytics and operations reputation into the basketball side.
The Lakers are also renovating their practice facility with medical, movement, and recovery labs, with reports noting collaboration with the Dodgers organization on those upgrades.
That is why Reaves’ rehab stop should not be seen as random. It looks like an early example of how Walter’s teams may share knowledge, staffing ideas, and recovery resources across sports.
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