Lakers News: The Only Way LeBron James Thinks He Can Recover From His Sore Left Foot
A staple of Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James's tenure with the club that is fairly unique to this particular stop in his career trajectory has, unfortunately, been him being sidelined by a series of injuries. He has been impacted by major ailments every season save L.A.'s 2019-20 championship run.
This year, James is already hurt, but he is doing his darnedest to play through it... while on what looks like one of the worst teams in the NBA, although a tough early schedule could be skewing the team's results.
James seemed to be pretty frank about the state of the sore foot that has been pestering him throughout the start of the 2022-23 season, suggesting that he may, at long last, be taking things a little bit easier than he has in years past:
"Yeah rest is the only way, and that's it. That's what I've been told. Rest is the only way to help it, which I don't have [time to do]. Which I don't have. Day-by-day-by-day. I'll be in the lineup tonight... When it comes about, [I] kind of just [determine] however I'm feeling that day, how's my foot feeling. Just try to manage my health, which is most important. Just take it day-by-day when it comes to the back-to-backs."
It's savvy of James to recognize that he should at least take it easy when playing back-to-back sets of games, and probably just pick one of the contests, not both.
The big caveat to James's decision to more or less play through the injury, back-to-back games aside, is: will an injured James being in the lineup of this current team, playing alongside this present roster, actually help impact winning for this sorry 2-8 club?
L.A. does have a slate of winnable games against sub-.500 clubs on the docket this month, including bouts against the Sacramento Kings, Brooklyn Nets, Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs (three times), and Indiana Pacers. It makes sense in the short-term for James to want to stick around through this next stretch if he's not at risk for worsening the foot. But this Lakers team, as currently comprised, just isn't very good. Without James, it will probably lose most of those games.
Taking a broader outlook on the team's season, though, would it not behoove James to take some time to let his sore foot heal up more completely, so that he can hopefully return to at least the elite offensive level he occupied as recently as 2021-22?
This iteration of the Lakers is not going anywhere, but a future Russell Westbrook trade could at least improve the team to a degree, if probably not to title contention. From a competitive angle, it makes sense that James's instinct is to tough it out so that the team doesn't fall too far behind. Unfortunately, that might just happen regardless of whether or not he suits up.
Let's see what the Lakers can do against the Clippers tonight. The game tips off right now.
