LeBron James injury update: Lakers rising hopes come crashing down

The LeBron James injury the Lakers star suffered in Sunday’s win over the Mavericks is more serious than expected and is a huge blow to LA’s playoff hopes.

On Sunday night, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers gave fans more hope than they’d had in quite some time. With a lineup revamped after a busy trade deadline, they fought back from a 27-point deficit against Dallas while James fought through a foot injury suffered in the contest to earn a 111-108 win.

And with that combined with the Pelicans’ loss to the Magic on Monday night, the Lakers would be feeling great that they are currently just 0.5 games out of the play-in tournament and only 2.5 games out of the coveted No. 6 seed in the Western Conference.

Sadly, the LeBron James injury is much more serious than expected, potentially dashing the playoff hopes for Los Angeles.

Shams Charania of The Athletic (subscription required) reported on Monday night that James will miss “multiple weeks” with a foot injury that he suffered and played through against the Mavs. More notably, the evaluation of the injury is going to require “multiple opinions” as well, which certainly sounds ominous.

LeBron James injury update: Lakers playoff hopes in jeopardy with star out ‘multiple weeks’

After the trade deadline at which the Lakers acquired D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt, the roster is much deeper and more adequate than it would’ve been previously with James out of the lineup. So to some degree, you can cast aside the fact that the Lakers are a meager 5-9 without him this season.

At the same time, though, there is no one on the roster who can replace the leadership and on-court playmaking that James has continued to provide at an All-NBA-caliber level this season. Moreover, time is running out for the Lakers to continue to close that gap in the West playoff race.

There are only six weeks and 21 games left on the schedule for Los Angeles and, with a vague timetable on an injury that is going to need multiple doctors and specialists to look at it, that could be how much time James is out.

The situation is fluid as more information comes out in terms of just how much we should bury the Lakers’ playoff hopes. That being said, for them to stay alive, Anthony Davis, Russell and this new-look team will have the step up in ways we, frankly, haven’t seen this year for LA to have a chance at being alive in the postseason race by the time we can only hope James would return by.