Lakers Guard Marcus Smart to Debut with Minutes Restriction Against Suns

Los Angeles Lakers guard Marcus Smart is slated to make his preseason debut Tuesday night against the Phoenix Suns, where he will be limited to approximately 20 to 25 minutes. The 31-year-old, entering his 12th NBA season, is returning from Achilles tendinopathy. Smart adopted a cautious recovery approach with the Lakers staff, influenced by the recent spate of Achilles injuries among NBA stars. He stated, "It wasn't scary in the fact of understanding that tendinopathy, we all kind of have it playing over the time… Just making sure you do everything you need to do, to make sure that you can get back out here, or to be able to say, ‘No, I can't.’ So you got to test it, unfortunately, and you got to see where you’re at. So we've done all the tests on the court, off the court and we're feeling fast, feeling good so we want to give it a shot,” indicating his readiness after thorough evaluation.