LeBron James' injury has continued to hinder the LA Lakers as the team fights to climb into play-in contention. After the All-Star break, James was ruled out indefinitely as a result of a foot injury he's been dealing with since January. With D'Angelo Russell and Anthony Davis also dealing with their fair share of injuries, many have held out hope for James.
After reports surfaced that LeBron James would avoid surgery for the injury, Shams Charania gave another update on James’ injury. According to the Lakers, James has a right foot tendon injury that will be re-evaluated in three weeks time.
That puts James’ targeted return date for the March 24th game against the OKC Thunder. After that, the Lakers will have just eight more games before potentially heading into the postseason.
According to Chris Haynes, the belief is that LeBron James could potentially play through the injury if he absolutely had to. This comes on the heels of reports surfacing this week that James will avoid surgery.
On '#thisleague UNCUT', Haynes spoke about the situation in LA, saying:
"Could LeBron get out there and play right now? It’d be a risk, but I think he probably could if he necessarily had to. But it’s too much of a risk. It’s too much pain right now. The plan right now is to get him as much time to heal for this rehab process, but the Lakers have got to win."
While the LA Lakers set themselves up for a strong final stretch of the year with acquisitions of Rui Hachimura and D’Angelo Russell, injuries have been the story of the season. In addition, Anthony Davis has continued to deal with injuries throughout the season. Early on, Davis was putting up MVP caliber numbers despite obvious back pain.
During his absence from the court, it was LeBron James who took over in an attempt to keep the team afloat while chasing NBA history. Despite his best efforts, the Lakers have continued to sit outside of playoff contention. The team is one game behind the New Orleans Pelicans and the Utah Jazz who are tied in 10th place.
The latest updates have James out for at least 2-3 weeks, meaning the team will largely have to pull themselves into Play-In contention without him. With that being said, Shams Charania has used the term “an indefinite amount of time” regarding the injury, meaning it could be longer until we see James if he doesn’t progress.
Most recently, the team managed to pick up a crucial win against the OKC Thunder without James, Russell, and Davis. The win gave many hope that they can turn things around and win enough games to qualify for the postseason.
Fortunately, if the team is able to qualify for the postseason, James will have several games to find his rhythm before the end of the year. With the Western Conference race heating up, it will be interesting to see how things play out for the remainder of the year.
