Two Lakers players test positive for coronavirus, team says

Tom Gatto

Two Lakers players test positive for coronavirus, team says image

Two Lakers players have tested positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19), the team announced Thursday. The players' names have not been released.

The players "are asymptomatic, in quarantine and under the care of the team's physician," the team said in its statement.

Shams Charania of The Athletic/Stadium and Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times reported before the Lakers' announcement that results of tests taken earlier in the week showed two positives. Turner reported that 14 Lakers players were tested Wednesday and received the results Thursday.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATES: NBA players, other sports figures who have tested positive

The two Lakers players bring the total of NBA players known to have contracted the virus to 10. Four members of the Nets, including Kevin Durant, were the most recent players to test positive before the Lakers' results. The Nets played the Lakers in Los Angeles on March 10, two days before the NBA suspended play in response to a positive test result by Jazz center Rudy Gobert.

The Lakers news comes shortly after the 76ers announced three positive tests within their organization (the Sixers did not specify whether players tested positive), and just before the Celtics announced that a player tested positive. Boston guard Marcus Smart announced on social media that he was the player

This article has been updated with the statement by the Lakers and the identity of the Celtics player who tested positive

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.