{"id":39380,"date":"2025-07-26T19:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/39380\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T19:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:10:08","slug":"college-basketballs-no-1-scorer-may-not-join-luka-lebron-on-lakers-after-devastating-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/39380\/","title":{"rendered":"College basketball&#8217;s No. 1 scorer may not join Luka, LeBron on Lakers after devastating injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following the 2025 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers, like every other franchise, identified viable two-way contract candidates.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers had plenty of options at their disposal after landing Arkansas star forward Adou Thiero in the second round of the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1938425169992708104\" rel=\"nofollow\"> ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania<\/a>, college basketball No. 1 scorer Eric Dixon agreed to a deal with Los Angeles almost instantly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, a foot injury sidelined Dixon for the entire Summer League, denying him an opportunity to make a lasting impression on the franchise.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8767nIKW41U\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Lakers Nation\u2019s Trevor Lane<\/a> recently pointed out that due to the 24-year-old\u2019s devastating lower-body setback, there\u2019s a chance he may join Luka Doncic and LeBron James next season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did not officially sign with the Lakers on a two-way,&#8221; Lane said on his podcast Friday. &#8220;My understanding, and coming from sources close to the team, is that he was unlikely to get that two-way contract due to the injury.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029Vakw2IH60eBZ4UO1Iz1b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t know exactly what the injury is. I know he rolled past me in Summer League on a scooter with his foot in a boot. So, that&#8217;s obviously not a good sign.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe he sticks around, he gets a spot in the G League with South Bay or something, and then maybe he gets a two-way spot after all. The Lakers do have an open two-way spot right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dixon was a superstar with Villanova during the 2024-25 college basketball campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Wildcats grossly underachieved under Kyle Neptune, but Dixon was among the minimal bright spots for the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dixon, a versatile and physical 6-foot-8 forward who\u2019s challenging to contain, made life stressful for opponents all year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The undrafted rookie averaged 23.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, shooting\u00a0\u00a045.1% from the field and 40.7% from three in 35 contests.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s unclear if Dixon will begin his career with the Lakers, his intriguing skill set will likely enable him to land an NBA gig sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<p>More NBA:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/golden-state-warriors\/news\/former-warriors-forward-g-league-champion-joins-victor-wembanyama-spurs\/5de515690ecd3d5166666f97\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Former Warriors forward, G-League champion joins Victor Wembanyama on Spurs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the 2025 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers, like every other franchise, identified viable two-way contract candidates.\u00a0&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-39380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}