Take a deep breath, Laker fans. I know it feels like the sky is falling right now. LeBron James suffered a strained groin on Saturday, against the hated Boston Celtics no less, and now he’s expected to miss at least the next 1-2 weeks. Given his age and where we are on the schedule, it would be easy to overreact about what this means for his health moving forward.
Let’s go back just two years, to 2023. The season was, in many ways, similar to this one. A slow start led to a trade deadline revamp. The Lakers raced out of the gates, winning the first three games that James played with the new, post-Russell Westbrook roster by 34 combined points. But in that third game, on Feb. 26 against the Mavericks, James suffered a right foot injury that sidelined him for exactly one month. He played in the final eight games of the regular season, and that was ultimately enough. The Lakers made it all the way to the Western Conference finals.
As his brief partnership with Luka Dončić thus far has suggested, there’s not going to be much more of an acclimation period. The two are ready to win together. All that matters, at this point, is that James is ready to go by the middle of April. If he is, the Lakers should be fine, perhaps not Western Conference favorites, but still one of the most dangerous teams in the field overall. The broader question now is what happens while he’s out.
The answer, probably, is some degree of short-term pain. The Lakers hold the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference by only 1.5 games over the Memphis Grizzlies and two games over the Houston Rockets. Their five-game lead over the Golden State Warriors is probably safe, but that will rely on health elsewhere. The Lakers have the sixth-hardest remaining schedule in the NBA, including one head-to-head matchup each with Memphis and Golden State and two with Houston. None of those games, however, come until March 29, so there is a good chance that James is back in time to play in them.
There are pros and cons to slipping outside of the top three, if that is how this plays out. The obvious danger is that it means an earlier matchup with the No. 1-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, who are having one of the best statistical seasons in NBA history. Of course, after Dončić dispatched them in the second round of the postseason a year ago, the Lakers might not fear them all that much. The obvious benefit, in all likelihood, is that it makes a first-round matchup with Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and the similarly reloaded Golden State Warriors less likely. As hot as the Warriors are right now, a three-game lead with fewer than 20 to play is substantial. Golden State’s likeliest slot is No. 6, which means getting out of No. 3 helps avoid them. Don’t let records fool you. There isn’t a team in the NBA that would rather see Curry and Butler than an inexperienced Rockets group in the first round.
For now, the idea will be to adjust to life without James, and the Lakers are fortunately better equipped to do that than most teams would be. Dončić, obviously, has no shortage of experience when it comes to leading an offense singlehandedly, and Austin Reaves has quietly been excellent when James has missed time. Over the last two seasons, he has averaged 21.7 points, 6.1 assists and 5.1 rebounds across the 14 games he has played without James. Ball-handling, thankfully, is not an issue. If Rui Hachimura can make it back before James does (which appears likely), then all the better.
As offense-centric as a roster built around Dončić, James and Reaves figured to be, the Lakers haven’t actually won with offense since their blockbuster trade. In the 12 games since Dončić debuted in purple and gold, the Lakers rank No. 15 on offense and No. 2 on defense. Maintaining average offense with Dončić and Reaves soaking up more possessions seems doable. That’s especially true given the regression they’re likely to experience. Since Dončić arrived, they’ve shot only 36% on wide-open 3s and 32.4% on open 3s. The former would be a bottom-five shooting mark in the NBA and the latter would be bottom 10. The Lakers shot multiple percentage points better before Dončić arrived, but have better shooting on-paper with him. There’s room for offensive growth here through regression alone.
The flip side to this is that the Lakers have also been remarkably lucky when it comes to opponent shooting. Teams facing the Lakers post-Dončić’s debut are shooting 34.4% on wide-open 3s and 30.3% on open ones. That shooting luck defensively is probably more important in the grand scheme of things because of the roster the Lakers are currently playing with.
Remember, the Lakers ultimately didn’t land a center at the deadline after nixing the Mark Williams trade. Jaxson Hayes has held up as well as could be expected since then, but he’s only playing around half of the game. Two-way center Trey Jemison has impressed in a backup role as well, but there is not a traditional defensive anchor here. The Lakers are thriving defensively because of their effort, their basketball IQ and their size and athleticism on the wing.
Losing James, who has been stellar defensively of late, is a big blow there. Jarred Vanderbilt, Dorian Finney-Smith and Gabe Vincent have all been quite good defensively, but all play substantially less than James does and lack his near-encyclopedic knowledge of essentially any action any offense has run over the past two decades. Losing James means losing another rangy wing and putting more of a defensive strain on Dončić and Reaves when their offensive roles just got more difficult.
The name of the game right now, especially without consistently elite rim-protection, is probably going to be turnover generation. The Lakers have improved markedly on this front as the season has progressed, jumping from 20th to 12th since Dončić first suited up for them. The Lakers have played very aggressively defensively without Anthony Davis, and that’s going to have to persist now that James is sidelined. They are fortunately a pretty athletic bunch, and JJ Redick has proven malleable when it comes to game-planning.
As promising as a James-Dončić partnership looked on paper, the Lakers surely understood that the bulk of Dončić’s work as a Laker would likely come after James retired. Now, they’ll get their first peek at what a fully Dončić-centric lineup could eventually look like. That’s not the worst thing. It could prove to be a valuable data point they use in tweaking the roster this summer, or even further down the line. How viable is a Dončić-Reaves duo as the core of a roster? As confident as the Lakers are in Reaves’ future, they probably need to figure out relatively soon if he’s going to be good enough to serve as Dončić’s sidekick after James is gone. In a few weeks, they’ll be closer to an answer.
The Lakers were the hottest team in the NBA when James got hurt. Recapturing the magic of the last few weeks when he returns won’t be easy, but they have proof of concept at least. If James is healthy by the playoffs, they believe they can play with anyone. As frustrating as this injury is, there is at least hope that he will be ready when it counts.
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