With just 19 games left in the Los Angeles Lakers’ regular season, the outlook isn’t looking too good for them right now.
LeBron James is out with what has been diagnosed as a right foot tendon injury, an injury he suffered on Sunday versus the Dallas Mavericks.
He will reportedly be re-evaluated in about three weeks, which would mean that realistically, the earliest he could return to game action would be the final week of March.
But on his podcast, NBA reporter Chris Haynes gave an interesting tidbit when he said that, in his view, James could continue to play on the ailment if he had to.
Via Lakers Daily:
“So what I can say on LeBron is that sources did inform me that he will not require surgery,” Haynes said. “That’s good news. … 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. They’ve got to keep winning. They’ve got to buy him time.”
Playing things safe with James is likely the best approach, especially given that he has seemingly become a bit injury-prone over the last couple of years.
He was already dealing with a left foot ailment that was causing him a great deal of pain and forced him to sit out three games in a row just prior to the All-Star break.
Luckily, the Lakers’ next five games, as well as 10 of their next 12 contests, will be at home, and they have one of the NBA’s easiest remaining schedules in terms of strength of opponent. They’re in 11th place in the Western Conference and just one game behind the 10th-place New Orleans Pelicans.
