Los Angeles Times

Beating the Pistons was a treat for Kuzma

- By Broderick Turner broderick.turner@latimes.com

The Lakers rookie rooted for the team while he was growing up in Flint, Mich.

Though there has been some improvemen­t with Milos Teodosic’s health, it remains uncertain when he’ll return from a plantar fascia injury to his left foot.

Teodosic started wearing a walking boot on the foot Wednesday.

He had been getting around on a scooter.

“He’s making good progress,” said Lawrence Frank, the Clippers’ president of basketball operations. “The timetable is still indefinite. That’s one of those injuries where you just really got to let your body tell you when you’re ready. But everything is trending in a positive direction.”

Teodosic has not played since being injured against the Phoenix Suns on Oct. 21.

“The plan right away was we need to do non-weight bearing whenever you have that injury for the first 10 days or whatever, and then we’ll reevaluate right after that,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “So, I guess it’s been 10 days. Now he’s walking.”

Clippers deals

The Clippers said they decided against picking up the third-year option on power forward Brice Johnson because he didn’t play much during his rookie season last season.

The Clippers said they decided to pick up the fourth-year option on forward Sam Dekker because they had more chances to evaluate him in game situations.

Johnson, who will make $1.3 million this season, was due to earn $1.5 million next season if the Clippers had picked up his option, but he’ll become a free agent next summer. The Clippers still can re-sign him.

Johnson played in just three games last season because he dealt with a herniated disk in his lower back.

The Clippers drafted Johnson out of North Carolina in the first round in 2016, taking him 25th overall.

Johnson had appeared in just two games before the Clippers played the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night at home. He was averaging five points.

“It was a difficult decision,” Frank said. “We still think Brice is a talented young player. There wasn’t a great deal of body of work due to some different circumstan­ces last year obviously with the back injury and this year we just have great depth at the positon he plays.”

Dekker, who was acquired from Houston as a part of the Chris Paul trade, showed the Clippers enough over his first two seasons with the Rockets.

Dekker will earn $2.76 million next season. He was averaging 2.4 points.

“What we’ve seen, we continue to think, because he has a little bit more body of work, there’s a little more evidence there,” Frank said. “And he plays a position of great need, because Sam plays the three [small forward], whereas Brice plays the four [power forward].”

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