Lakers' Julius Randle leaves NBA debut with suspected broken right leg

Julius Randle's NBA career and the Los Angeles Lakers' season got off to an inauspicious start on Tuesday night.

In the fourth quarter of the team's opening night game against the Houston Rockets, Randle had to be stretchered off the floor in an air cast after suffering a right leg injury. The TNT broadcast revealed that the team believes Randle has broken his right leg, and while the team released nothing official, they retweeted TNT's report.

Randle went down with roughly six minutes to play in the game and was in obvious pain as head trainer Gary Vitti attended to him, surrounded by teammates and with Kobe Bryant appearing to try and keep Randle calm.

"Hurts man," Randle reportedly said to Bryant as Bryant cradled his head. "It hurts."

There's no other way to describe this than it sucks. For Randle, for the Lakers, and for fans. It's criminally unfair for a rookie to suffer a serious injury during his NBA debut, and it's yet another blow to a Lakers team that has had exactly zero luck with injuries over the past few seasons. 

This is not how the NBA season should kick off. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery for Randle.