Lakers React To LeBron James Injury: ‘Just Take His Time’

Los Angeles coach JJ Redick is as worried as all of Lakers Nation about LeBron James‘ groin injury, suffered during Saturday’s road loss to the Celtics.

“Obviously, concerned,” Redick told reporters after the game, via Jovan Buha of The Athletic. “Don’t have any information right now, though.”

James, 40, has the most discussed groin in the United States right now, and certainly the NBA. It could be that way for a few weeks, per multiple reports.

Shams Charania of ESPN reported that James will miss 1-2 weeks.

Meanwhile, the Lakers are in a tight Western Conference playoff race. Without James, obviously, they’re a completely different team. It’s then Luka Doncic and role players.

“This would be one of the worst portions of the regular season for James to potentially miss, with the Lakers playing the No. 2 Denver Nuggets twice over the next 10 days,” Buha wrote. “The Lakers finish their road trip in Brooklyn on Monday, and then in Milwaukee on Thursday and Denver on Friday. That back-to-back kicks off an eight-day stretch in which they play three consecutive back-to-backs: at Milwaukee/at Denver, vs. Phoenix/vs. San Antonio, and vs. Denver/vs. Milwaukee.”

The Lakers (40-22) are 8-2 in their last 10, a half-game behind the Nuggets in the Western Conference standings, two ahead of the Grizzlies and 2.5 ahead of the Rockets. Translation: With 20 games left, anything is possible in the West.

Anyway, James insisted the latest groin injury is not as bad as the one that caused the Lakers to shut him down in 2019. Doncic sounded confident that the Lakers can fight and perhaps even survive.

“Obviously, to get injured at this time, those (groin) injuries are — I don’t want to say the worst, but they are tough to deal with,” Doncic said, via Buha. “So, just take his time. And we got to have as a team a next-man-up mentality.”

Added guard Austin Reaves: “We’ve had many situations where a player deals with some type of injury or a trade or whatever it is, and we’ve done a really good job of bouncing back. And I don’t expect anything else. It’s a next-man-up mentality. Not one person’s gonna do what LeBron does for us. But you can do it as a collective. And … hopefully, he gets back out on the court soon.”