{"id":129075,"date":"2025-03-17T06:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T10:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=129075"},"modified":"2025-03-17T04:41:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T08:41:24","slug":"playoff-implications-of-lebrons-injury-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/17\/playoff-implications-of-lebrons-injury-update\/","title":{"rendered":"The Playoff Implications Of LeBron\u2019s Injury Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lakers stopped their four-game losing streak on Sunday with a win over the Phoenix Suns. They did this without <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>, who has missed the last four Lakers games with a groin strain. Shams Charania recently reported that the 40-year-old will miss at least another week of games before returning. The Lakers are currently in the middle of a heated Western Conference playoff race, where every game matters. We are going to take a look at the most recent LeBron injury update and see how it potentially impacts the Lakers playoff seeding in the West.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The Playoff Implications Of LeBron\u2019s Injury Update<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>LeBron Injury Update<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What sounded like a minor\u00a0injury may take James a little longer to recover from. Charania is reporting that the most recent LeBron injury update is that he has just started on-court workouts. He will miss at least another week.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Reporting for ABC NBA Countdown: LeBron James has his first on-court workout today \u2013 with ESPN footage \u2013 plus a Lakers return timetable update: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xTeiMRblnp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/xTeiMRblnp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1901321774052307135?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Charania said that the Lakers are going to be very cautious in bringing James back. Due to his age and the insane amount of basketball mileage on his body, the Lakers have to be careful with this soft tissue injury. The worst-case scenario would be bringing James back too soon and have him re-aggravate the injury before the playoffs start.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Lakers Upcoming Schedule<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lakers have a few tough games ahead of them. LeBron will likely, at a minimum, miss the team\u2019s next four games and possibly more. Two of those games will be against contenders in the Denver Nuggets and Milwaukee Bucks. The Nuggets game specifically will be key as the Lakers are currently fighting with them for positioning near the top of the Western Conference standings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At this point in the season, every game is important, and having James miss this week (and possibly longer) could have major playoff implications. <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.tankathon.com\/remaining_schedule_strength\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tankathon<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the Lakers have the sixth-most difficult remaining schedule in the league. They will need James to return sooner rather than later if they want to hold on to advantageous seeding for the playoffs. However if he comes back too soon, and gets hurt again, it could be even worse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Western Conference Playoff Picture<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lakers have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/10\/akers-luka-doncic-thrive-lebron-james-absence\/\" target=\"_self\">fallen to the fifth seed<\/a> in the Western Conference. They are tied in the loss column with three other teams: the Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets, and Memphis Grizzlies. Just a few days ago, the Lakers were a second seed, which shows you just how quickly things can change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With James likely out for at least the next few games, the Lakers are going to have their work cut out for them. If they rack up even just a few more losses, they could see themselves plummet even further down the standings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are only 2.5 games ahead of the Golden State Warriors (seven straight wins) and the Minnesota Timberwolves (eight straight wins), who are the two hottest teams in the NBA right now. As these teams nip at the Lakers heels, the pressure is on. For the Lakers, avoiding the Play-In Tournament is essential, but so is getting homecourt advantage for as many playoff rounds as possible. This LeBron injury update certainly will make things harder, but Lakers fans are hoping James can return soon to help keep the Lakers head above water in a crowded Western Conference playoff field.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lakers stopped their four-game losing streak on Sunday with a win over the Phoenix Suns. They did this without LeBron James, who has missed the last four Lakers games with a groin strain. Shams Charania recently reported that the 40-year-old will miss at least another week of games before returning. The Lakers are currently [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":129084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,26,62,3],"tags":[38,4745,2388],"class_list":["post-129075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-lebron-james","tag-nba-injuries","tag-shams-charania"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129075"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129085,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129075\/revisions\/129085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}