Since LeBron James went down with a groin injury in the third quarter of the Lakers Christmas Day win at Golden State the team has been reeling with a record of 3-7 in the 10 games James has missed. The original timetable for his return was around three weeks but there is little clarity on when the superstar will return to action.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, James’ agent Rich Paul gave him an update on his recovery.
“Rich Paul told me when he’s ready to go, he’ll go. They were given a three-week injury timetable when he first suffered the injury on Christmas Day and if it takes longer, it takes longer, Paul said.”
Charania went to add that essentially when James is finally back to 100% he will return and that groin injuries are similar to hamstring injuries in that they are both difficult to determine how long the recovery will take.
James is set to be re-evaluated by the Lakers on Wednesday, just ahead of their matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday.
Unless there are significant increases in his recovery it seems as if the forward could miss a few more games at the minimum. During the last evaluation of his groin injury James was cleared to ramp up his on-court activity so how his groin reacts to that will be important in what the Lakers do once he is re-evaluated on Wednesday.
During their time without the all-star, the team has struggled mightily while battling other injuries to Kyle Kuzma and Rajon Rondo as well as trying to find their identity sans James. As a result, they have fallen quite a bit in the Western Conference playoff picture and are in jeopardy of being out of the eighth spot before he returns.
