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Los Angeles Lakers center Mo Bamba has been inactive for all five contests in his team's ongoing best-of-seven second round playoff series against the Golden State Warriors thus far, due to a high ankle sprain.

Now, the 3-and-D rim-protecting big man has provided his own health update to Marc J. Spears of Andscape. The 7-footer informs Spears that he expects he could play for LA during the Western Conference Finals, should the Lakers advance that far.

Keep in mind, Los Angeles got up to a 3-1 advantage over the reigning champs earlier in this series, and still leads the series 3-2 with the matchup now returning to Crypto.com Arena tonight.

Should the Lakers advance tonight against the Warriors, as Las Vegas oddsmakers and I expect, they would face off against the top-seeded Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals, which should tip off on Tuesday.

Bamba, who turns 25 today, is a career 35.9% three-point shooter on 2.5 attempts a game, though he made just 31.3% of his 1.8 tries this season in limited minutes for LA, and was slotted behind Wenyen Gabriel in the team's rotation even when he was healthy. Los Angeles holds a $10.3 million team option on Bamba this summer. Unless he has a big moment -- or, ideally, several -- in these playoffs, I'd expect him to wind up elsewhere for less this summer.

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