After the Lakers wrapped up Tuesday’s practice in preparation for their upcoming matchup versus the Clippers, head coach Darvin Ham gave an update on Gabe Vincent’s and Jarred Vanderbilt’s injuries.

The good news is that neither appears to have suffered a setback, but the bad news is that neither appears to be returning to the court anytime soon.

“Just going according to plan, man,” Ham said regarding Vincent. “Just non-impact work in terms of getting on the (court), him being on the AlterG and doing some other things in the weight room, in the pool. That’s it for now.”

The original timeline we were given on Vincent’s injury was around eight weeks and we are now just past that mark, so Vincent still not doing any impact work is disappointing,

Through no fault of his own, Vincent is quickly becoming the most disappointing addition the Lakers have had since Kendrick Nunn, who missed an entire season with the world’s worst bone bruise. It’s odd that both Miami Heat alumni Vincent and Nunn fell off a cliff once they left South Beach and joined the Lakers, but sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.

In the handful of games Vincent played, he was underwhelming, but five games in the fall is not a big enough sample size to judge a player joining a new team.

Vincent still has time to return with 20-plus games left, but how long can the Lakers wait? Implementing him gets harder and harder with each passing day and the upcoming games only increase in importance as the Western Conference standings are as tight as ever.

Ham spoke about the challenges of integrating players back from injury this late in the season and how realistic it was to expect them to contribute.

“I’m very realistic,” Ham said. “I just think if you get a healthy body back…you work them back in slowly, you do different things, you have stay-ready groups to try to get up to speed where you are currently and just let chips fall where they may. No one has a crystal ball. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. You just have to continue to work each and every day and hope they work each and every day to strengthen and resolve their injuries and go from them.

“There’s no formula or secret potion that’s going to drop them back in the lineup hitting on all cylinders. It’s going to be a process but it’s one we’re willing to go through.”

One player the Lakers need to return as soon as possible is their elite wing defender, Jarred Vanderbilt. We have now reached the three-week mark that was discussed once the mid-foot sprain was diagnosed and similar to Vincent, the update was more of the same.

“Status quo,” Ham said. “Just his ramping up, different alternative workouts but same thing going on with him. There’s no change on that.

“When I say ramp up, I don’t mean on the hardwood,” Ham added. “Just doing stuff in the weight room, doing the stuff in the pool.”

Vanderbilt is one of the best defenders on this team, and when he plays, he can take on some of the most dynamic scorers in the West and make them work at worst and lock them down at best.

His returning would raise this team’s defensive ceiling and give LeBron James and Anthony Davis an elite defender to help shoulder some of the defensive burden. Vincent back would be a nice addition, but Vanderbilt’s return can help this team win postseason games.

At least the news isn’t bad, but it’s far from encouraging, given how few games we have left in the season. Hopefully, the following update on Vincent and Vanderbilt shows a path to them returning to action this season.