The Los Angeles Lakers are preparing to make a run at the post-season without megastar forward LeBron James, according to reports.
James has suffered a tendon injury in his right foot after falling awkwardly against the Dallas Mavericks, and was seen telling team-mates he heard his foot "pop" in scary scenes.
The NBA's all-time leading points scorer was able to play through the remainder of the game, but was subsequently ruled out indefinitely while tests were carried out on the 38-year-old. Now, however, the Lakers have learned James has suffered a right tendon injury and will miss at least three weeks of action.
The team will then re-evaluate James after the three weeks are up, raising fears he could miss the remainder of the regular season. The Lakers are currently fighting to get into the Play-Offs after going on a respectable run of wins, but are now back to square one.
The Lakers are now 2.5 games back from making the Play-Offs automatically, but are closer to making the play-in tournament in order to make the post-season.
And according to ESPN's senior NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, the Lakers are preparing for life without James heading into the post-season. Speaking to SportsCenter, Wojnarowski said: "Three weeks for a re-evaluation doesn't mean he's back in three weeks.
"Now you're down another ten games in this window inside of them are the last ten games of the regular season, that ends in early-April. The Lakers are right now preparing for having to make their post-season run without LeBron James in this regular season.
"They probably don't have enough right now to make a run to 6th as Darvin Ham hoped they would, but they've certainly got enough from the 10th seed in the West in the play-in to hang around that with New Orleans, the Utah Jazz, and hope they can be in play-off contention when it's possible for LeBron James to come back.
"The Lakers, at 38-years-old, a player of LeBron James' stature, they've got to play the long game with this. They've got to make a decision at some point this season if he's not ready to return of the risk-reward of trying to rush him back in any way to get to play-in as a 9th seed or 10th seed. Certainly for now, the Lakers are preparing for certainly three weeks... certainly a month, without LeBron James."
