Nick Young will miss the next two to four weeks with a strained calf muscle in his right leg.

Young picked up the injury on Tuesday.

Young is averaging 13.3 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 18 games so far this season, reviving his career after the Los Angeles Lakers nearly parted ways with him in the offseason.

D'Angelo Russell wants to be 100 percent healthy before he returns to the Los Angeles Lakers' lineup.

Russell underwent a platelet-rich plasma injection in his sore left knee that will keep him out at least two weeks.

"I definitely don't want to force anything," Russell said Saturday at the Lakers' training facility in his first public comments since the injection. "I feel like I've got to be 100 percent perfect before I step back on the floor."

Russell said the left knee had been bothering him off and on since the start of the season.

"I was in a lot of pain, but I knew how to control it," he said. "I knew what not to do. [There are] so many games in this league, so it's hard to stay healthy when you're injured and try to maintain that focus."

He added, "I can't really move the way I want, so when I try to fight it and [do] sharp movements and plant and do stuff like that, it aggravated it."

Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook see some similarities in the Los Angeles Lakers to their situation with the Oklahoma City Thunder when they had a burgeoning young core.

“You can tell they enjoy playing with each other. You can tell Luke Walton has come over there and changed the culture a bit,” Durant said. “I’ve been on a team like that. You’re young and just want to go out there and have fun with the game with no expectations. You’re just playing.”

The Thunder won just 20 games in Durant's second season which was when Westbrook was a rookie.

“It did wonders for me at that age, being around a bunch of guys that were just as hungry as me and wanting to win,” Durant said. “But when we lost games, we weren’t upset with ourselves. There weren’t any feuds. We knew it was a process.”

“They’ve been playing well,” Westbrook said of the Lakers.

D’Angelo Russell received a PRP injection in his left knee. The procedure was performed in Los Angeles by Dr. Steve Yoon.

Russell is expected to be out a minimum of two weeks, and will be re-evaluated in one week.

Russell is currently averaging 16.1 points, 4.8 assists, and 3.4 rebounds in 13 games this season.

The Los Angeles Lakers re-signed Jordan Clarkson this offseason on a four-year, $50 million deal just two years after he was the 46th overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft.

The Lakers bought the pick from the Washington Wizards and they were tempted to pick Russ Smith over Clarkson. Smith was picked 47th overall but he is already playing in Turkey after he was unable to stick with the New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies.

Clarkson is averaging 14.5 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.6 steals in 26.6 minutes per game in a 6th man role for the Lakers.

Ryan West and Jesse Buss lobbied for Clarkson within the Lakers' front office.

The Los Angeles Lakers want D'Angelo Russell to either play aggressively or to rest his sore left knee.

Russell had only eight points in the Lakers' loss on Sunday to the Chicago Bulls as he relied mostly on jumpers.

“We want him to push and be aggressive,” Luke Walton said. “You can’t play at this level by favoring it. If that’s the case where it hurts, then we need to shut him down until he’s healthy. The league is too good only to go halfway and show some of the stuff that you can do because you’re concerned that something might hurt.”

Russell told Walton his left knee “feels about the same” after Sunday’s game.

“I thought he was favoring it a little bit,” Walton said. “I don’t know if he was hurt or it was in his head. But it felt like he was floating around the perimeter more than normal.”

D'Angelo Russell grew up idolizing Manu Ginobili even as his father considered him to be a blend of Jalen Rose and Lamar Odom. Rose and Odom were two left-handers with size who could handle the ball and do a bit of everything.

"He used to tell me that his favorite player was Manu Ginobili," Russell's brother Antonio Jr. said. "He always used to be like, 'Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili.'"

"As time went on, I saw him pattern his game [after him] and doing the things that Ginobili does," Antonio Sr. said.

Russell studied film of Ginobili, trying to learn whatever he could.

"Yeah, basically everything Ginobili did," said Jamie Johnson, a childhood friend. "He tried to watch how Ginobili moved off the ball -- just everything, as far as IQ-wise too, because Ginobili, of course, isn't the fastest guy. [D'Angelo] understood that he wasn't fast either, so he tried to find players that were similar to him."

As a rookie, Lakers staffers showed Russell footage of Ginobili, particularly how the Spurs ran plays to get him the ball.

The Los Angeles Lakers have assigned center Ivica Zubac to the Los Angeles D-Fenders.

Zubac was selected by the Lakers with the 32nd overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft and has appeared in three games for the team this season.

Phil Jackson was asked about how he's handled the adversity the New York Knicks have faced since he became president of the club.

While the Knicks have drafted Kristaps Porzingis and re-signed Carmelo Anthony, they have yet to reach the playoffs as they're stuck between win-now mode and building for the future.

"I knew the parameters of what would go on from years of playing in series against the Knicks," said Jackson. "I remember all the barbs. It's a process of sticking to my beliefs and being able to say, 'Whatever.' This is what I was hired to do. I'm going to follow the plan and if it doesn't work out, it will be evident."

Jackson was also asked about the opt-out clause in his contract after the 16-17 season and whether he plans to exercise it.

"I have not entertained that. I'm looking for this Knicks team to get back into a situation where they are competitive. Do I have to win a championship before I feel I've done the job I've been asked to do, which is to bring this group back to that competitive level? No, I don't. We're starting to make progress. I like a lot of the things we are doing here. But we've got more to do."

Jackson has been linked to a return to the Los Angeles Lakers at various points during his tenure with the Knicks.

"They're moving forward in the right direction," said Jackson. "Luke (Walton) has them engaged, Brian (Shaw) is an associate head coach; they have a core group of guys that will get it done. It was never important to me to go back and be a part of that. Especially not now. I have this job, this commitment."

Jackson explained the opt-out clause was related to a potential lockout in 2017 that now appears unlikely.

"The real issue with the opt out was simply my rationale regarding the (potential) lockout. If it was going to happen in December and everybody chose to walk away, there was no way I was going to sit in New York for three, four months when I didn't have a job, because (the players) aren't even allowed to show up to work. So, in that case, I would go back to L.A."

Nick Young's tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers was nearly over this offseason but he remained with the franchise and has become a productive player again.

“It has always upset me that people have a misperception of Nick,” said Mark Bartelstein, Young’s longtime agent. “He is actually an unbelievably hard worker who takes tremendous pride in his game.”

Luke Walton and Mitch Kupchak stayed in contact with Bartelstein in the offseason and said that Young needed to eliminate distractions to remain with the Lakers.

“We made a decision this summer ... let’s not give anybody something to talk about other than his game because that’s what has always been most important to him,” Bartelstein said.

The Lakers could have waived Young by Aug. 31 and pay out the remaining $11.1 million evenly over five seasons.

Young sweated that deadline until it passed.

“Of course it humbled me,” Young said. “I told myself I’m just going to go out there and play my heart out this year. I don’t want to hear all the rumors. Just go out there and dive on floors, and just be Dennis Rodman if I had to this year.”