LeBron James missed six weeks earlier this season with a high ankle sprain. He ended up returning last week for two outings, only to seemingly re-injure himself, experience a setback, and miss the squad’s subsequent outings.
Both James and the Lakers have been issuing really bizarre comments regarding the entire the situation.
Nevertheless, this week, James set his sights on a new return date.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, James hopes to come back on Tuesday night against the New York Knicks.
If that doesn’t happen, he already has his Plan B in place.
“Lakers star LeBron James is targeting Tuesday vs. New York for return to the lineup from sore right ankle,” he wrote. “If not Tuesday, Wednesday vs. Houston is possible.”
The big issue for James right now isn’t so much when he’ll return, because obviously he is aiming to do it at some point this week. But rather it is when he will get back to his old self physically.
As noted by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, that question is much harder to answer.
“The concern for the Lakers right now, that right ankle of LeBron James that kept him out for six weeks, has put him out again,” he said.
“This is not going to get a lot better. He’s going to have to play with discomfort in the postseason. It’s not going to be until the summer. So there’s an even greater load on Anthony Davis here. But the question still remains of how effective LeBron James can be. When he was back those two games last week, he had difficulty exploding off that ankle and making hard cuts.”
The Bucks owner’s daughter decided to bring 2021 in with a bang by stripping all her clothes off. https://t.co/UgzhEEna4o
— Game 7 (@game7__) January 7, 2021
Seeing as the Lakers will only go as far as James can take them, this could spell trouble for the defending champs.
It has just been that sort of year for James. Just this past week James got some bad news about his return from injury. Before that he survived a terrifying threat from a crazed fan. Before that he was involved in some pretty controversial on-the-court plays. And that’s to say nothing of the backlash he received over one specific tweet.
Will James and the Lakers be able to get it together to make a title run? Time will tell.
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A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
