The Los Angeles Lakers have been plagued by injuries for a majority of the 2021-22 season with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and a number of key role players all missing time.
The hope was that when Anthony Davis returned from his sprained MCL that the team would finally be able to build some cohesion and go on a run, but of course, the team’s run of good health was short-lived.
When Davis returned, he only played one game alongside James and Russell Westbrook before someone went down with an injury. This time it was James again as he dealt with inflammation in his left knee, which forced him to miss the final three games of the road trip with the Lakers losing all three.
James headed back to L.A. before the final game of the road trip on Sunday to get more testing and treatment and Frank Vogel was hopeful he would be able to return on Wednesday against the Portland Trail Blazers.
It appears that won’t be the case though and James may miss even more time, via Shams Charania of The Athletic:
Lakers star LeBron James is expected to miss Wednesday’s game vs. Portland, and could be out a few more games due to irritation in left knee, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Sides want to be cautious and allow James to return once irritation subsides.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 1, 2022
This is obviously unfortunate news for the Lakers, who sit at 24-27 and are battling for a postseason berth. They have one of the more difficult schedules in the NBA to close out the season so could certainly use James to help pick up some much-needed wins.
The Lakers aren’t going anywhere this season without James being healthy though, so it makes sense to give him as much time as he needs to get to 100% before returning in order to avoid re-injury.
James is in the midst of one of the best seasons of his career, which is pretty crazy to think about at age 37 in his 19th season. James is averaging 29.1 points, 7.7 rebounds and 6.3 assists while scoring 25 or more points in every game Davis missed with the MCL injury.
LeBron named All-Star captain again
It remains to be seen if James will be healthy enough to play in the All-Star Game on Feb. 20, but one thing that is for sure is that he will be drafting his team once again after being named the captain of the Western Conference.
Team LeBron is 4-0 in the last four years after the NBA switched formats and will be looking to stay undefeated in Cleveland later this month.
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