There was a collective gulp heard around the city of Los Angeles when LeBron James went down against the Boston Celtics with a groin injury. The result of the game, which the Los Angeles Lakers wound up losing, felt far less important than the status of James moving forward.
Thankfully for the Lakers and their fans, this groin injury was confirmed to be a minor tweak and nothing worthy of overwhelming concern. That felt like a huge relief considering that James has been hampered by this exact type of injury during his time in Los Angeles before.
At first, life without the all-time great looked pretty challenging for the Lakers. That should be somewhat expected considering how great of a basketball player still is, even at the age of 40. However, those struggles for Los Angeles were also heavily resulting from the other key rotational pieces missing from the lineup.
As the Lakers started to get healthier, they found themselves back in the winner's column. The silver lining of the situation has also been the fact that Luka Doncic took full reins of the offense and has really figured it all out since.
Doncic is performing like his All-NBA self again
Make no mistake about it, James certainly got out of Doncic's way upon the arrival of the five-time All-NBA First Team member to Hollywood. The future Hall of Fame superstar was more than happy to sacrifice his role consisting of having the primary on-ball duties to allow Luka command over the offense.
However, sometimes it can still be a little difficult to fully get in your groove and have the full freedom to get back into form when there is another tremendous talent that needs his mouth fed offensively. It's no knock on James whatsoever. It is simply a matter of the extra need emerging for Doncic to really lead the offense has allowed him to take more risks and opportunities within it.
The Slovenian superstar has seen his usage percentage jump to a staggering figure of 39.2 over the last six games he's played without James in the lineup. Doncic has looked every bit of the player he was with the Dallas Mavericks during that time.
Luka has averaged 31.0 points, 9.8 rebounds, 7.8 assists, 2.0 steals, and 0.5 a block per game over his last six contests sans LeBron. The shooting numbers have looked encouraging too, with Doncic posting splits of 41-40-82.
The challenge from here for JJ Redick and his staff will be the same as it has been since the arrival of the offensive machine: balancing the books between Doncic, James, and even a surging Austin Reaves in the pecking order. That is a good problem to have.
With the postseason in sight, the Lakers have every opportunity to close the season strong and enter the NBA Playoffs with a lot of momentum on their side. Fans will eagerly await their dose of Luka Magic as a part of this year's playoff run.
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