Dwyane Wade purchased an ownership stake in the Utah Jazz recently. Saturday at Staples Center, Jazz coach Quin Snyder might have had fleeting thoughts about whether D-Wade could somehow be activated.

This is what the NBA has wrought. A short turnaround and a compacted schedule have led to a number of games like Saturday’s Lakers-Jazz tilt, where stars and key players are injured or ailing or just not available. And it’s not a matter of load management or maintenance days, either.

The Jazz, who entered the day with the Western Conference’s best record, lost Donovan Mitchell to an ankle sprain Friday against Indiana. Rudy Gobert, who had played every game so far, sat out with a knee bruise, as did Derrick Favors and Mike Conley (sore knees) and 7-footer Udoka Azubuike (ankle). The Lakers, of course, were still without Anthony Davis and LeBron James, and in his Saturday morning media briefing Frank Vogel was asked “who’s in?”

“(Andre) Drummond (toe) is back in, and he’ll start,” the Lakers coach Vogel said. “Markieff Morris (ankle) is a game-time decision. Dennis Schröder (foot) is a game-time decision … Marc Gasol is available but it’s a deal with some hamstring tightness and the broken finger, but he’s available. Everybody else is in, aside from AD and LeBron, of course.”

All of the game-time decisions but Gasol played. Drummond had 27 points, eight rebounds and two steals, and Schöder and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 25 points apiece in the Lakers’ 127-115 overtime victory in an ESPN game that was a contradiction to the NBA’s star-driven philosophy. The stars were in street clothes, and the others put on an entertaining show.

The dog days of the season usually come in February and March, but they’re extended this time because the season doesn’t end until mid-May. The Lakers have 15 games until the playoffs arrive, and the grind of 72 games in 146 days – compared to the more normal 82 in 174 days the Lakers played in the last normal season of 2018-19 – have created a minefield that will have coaches carefully managing their rosters until the real season finally begins.

But maybe that will turn out to be the overriding subplot of this Lakers season. The dog days in this case have served a purpose.

Saturday’s victory improved the Lakers’ record to 35-22. They are 14-15 since Davis suffered his calf injury (he’ll be back soon but maybe not as early as Monday’s rematch against the Jazz, Vogel said after the game), and 7-8 since James hurt his ankle. In other words, they’ve done a good job of treading water while integrating new players Drummond and guard Ben McLemore and waiting for their stars to return, knowing that at some point the roster will be whole again and in a position to do damage.

“We’ll be healthy at the right time,” Morris said. “It’s perfect for us, man. With this crazy season, with all these games, back-to-back nights, without our best two players we’ve held it down for the most part. Now we’re getting them back, fully healthy, ready to make a spurt.

“We’re a championship team. We got championship DNA, we won a championship last year, and we got a lot of guys that (were) on that team last year and won a championship. That DNA, we use it every game.”

Caldwell-Pope mentioned patience, staying together and not panicking, traits that came in handy Saturday when the Lakers blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead by going nearly 6-1/2 minutes without scoring. That patience, and the confidence gained by holding things down without their stars, has to be an asset going down the stretch, doesn’t it?

“I feel like it helped us figure out who we are without our superstars,” Caldwell-Pope said. “Team-first basketball, and just playing for each other. I feel like that’s helping us build our chemistry without our two superstars.”

As noted earlier, it’s a league built on, and around, superstars. The combination of a short turnaround – 55 days for the champs, between the end of the Finals Oct. 11 and the start of training camp Dec. 6 – a compressed schedule and COVID protocols have affected everybody, but if there was any sort of a representative schedule to be played there wasn’t a lot that could be done to avoid it.

“We did not want to play another season into September or October,” Vogel said. “The NBA is trying to do the best they can to manage business through a pandemic.

“I think the league has done everything they can, honestly. They’ve looked at this thing from every angle, and everybody’s trying to make the best of it.”

The best part of the NBA year is now in sight, albeit distant. It is worth considering that, even with injuries and probably a less favorable seeding than had been anticipated, the Lakers along with Brooklyn are favored to make it to the NBA Finals in the futures betting of just about any, um, sports investment service posting odds. It would be far from the first time somebody sneaked from back in the pack to win an NBA title.

It’s yet another reminder. Talent matters in pursuit of a championship, but sometimes health matters more.

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter   

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