The Los Angeles Lakers have been forced to live life without LeBron James over the last few weeks and for the most part, things have been going okay. The ship has not sunk without its captain on the court to pilot things and Los Angeles is in a position to make the NBA Playoffs in the Western Conference.
When the injury first occurred, LeBron James was meant to be evaluated in three weeks by Lakers team doctors. Those three weeks are up, leaving many fans wondering what the status of the NBA Hall of Famer is.
NBA insider Shams Charnia reported on Thursday that LeBron has begun on-court activity and he was hopeful that he could play the last 3-4 games of the regular season. Great news, right? Well, it was until LeBron himself weighed in and completely rebuked what Shams had reported.
There wasn’t an evaluation today and there hasn’t been any target date for my return. I’m just working around the clock, every day(3X a day) to give myself to best chance of coming back full strength whenever that is. God bless y’all sources. 🤦🏾♂️ I speak for myself!
— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 23, 2023
Lakers fans should be concerned over LeBron James rebuking his own injury update.
Look, it is a great thing that LeBron James is sharing information straight from the source as it gives fans a better idea of what is actually going on. That being said, the fact that he went out of his way to rebuke one of the most respect insiders in all of sports is a bad sign.
LeBron probably is not going out of his way to rebuke Shams if there was some truth to it. Sure, he might not want to raise expectations for the fanbase, but he would have simply ignored the report and danced around the question when asked at press conferences.
Instead, he quickly came out and pretty much denied everything that Shams had reported. That sounds like someone who does not want to establish expectations as he is not sure whether or not he is going to return.
Hopefully, we are all just looking into this a bit too deeply than it really is. LeBron is someone who likes to control the narrative and this could just be another example of that.
But after Shams’ reporting and the fallout from James himself, it seems less likely now than it did before that he will actually return in time for the end of the regular season. And if that is the case then the play-in and NBA Playoffs are in jeopardy as well.