What are the implications of LeBron James' high ankle sprain for the Los Angeles Lakers' NBA title defense and his hopes of winning a fifth MVP award?
After trying to play through the injury, suffered in the second quarter of Saturday's loss to the visiting Atlanta Hawks, James pulled himself out of the game and was later diagnosed with a high ankle sprain following an MRI. Although there's no specific timeline for James' return, a high ankle sprain is often a multiweek injury.
Can the Lakers, already playing without fellow All-Star Anthony Davis due to a calf strain and Achilles tendinosis in his right leg, fortify their roster before Thursday's trade deadline? And how will James' absence affect the MVP race? Let's answer the key questions in the wake of James' injury.
How long might LeBron be out?
Without more details about the severity of James' high ankle sprain, it's tough to pinpoint exactly how long he might be out. When Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes.com wrote about the history of the injury during the 2018 NBA Finals, he noted that the typical high ankle sprain resulted in players missing 10 games. However, the player he was writing about -- Golden State Warriors All-Star Klay Thompson -- didn't miss a single game, playing after two days of rest between suffering the injury in Game 1 and the subsequent Game 3.
James' initial attempt to remain on the court after the injury (he even made a 3-pointer on the next possession) recalled his strong track record of playing through more common ankle sprains, which involve a different group of ligaments. As Stotts noted on Twitter on Saturday, his database showed James missing just three games total with eight previous ankle sprains.
In this case, there's reason for the Lakers to be more cautions with James' health -- certainly as compared to Thompson's desire to rush back during the NBA Finals. Where the Lakers finish in the Western Conference standings is less important than having their stars healthy for the postseason.
How far could Lakers fall in standings?
Saturday's loss, which snapped a four-game winning streak for the Lakers since the All-Star break, dropped them into a tie with the Phoenix Suns for second place in the Western Conference, 2.5 games back of the NBA-leading Utah Jazz. (Phoenix is technically ahead by virtue of having a better winning percentage, with one fewer win and one fewer loss.)
Lurking two games back are the slumping LA Clippers, who have lost five of their past seven games. And the Lakers are just 2.5 games up on the Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers, currently tied for fifth in the West. If James misses the next two weeks while Davis also remains out of the lineup -- Davis isn't expected to be reevaluated until late next week and would need to ramp up his conditioning before returning to game action -- it's entirely possible the Lakers could find themselves outside the conference's top four at that point.
The remaining Lakers competed hard defensively on Saturday, making a run in the fourth quarter after getting outscored 22-12 in the third, but couldn't find quite enough offense to rally from an early four-point deficit when James left the court. Although the Lakers prepared for this scenario to some extent by adding Montrezl Harrell and Dennis Schroder last offseason to make them somewhat less dependent on Davis and James for scoring, there's only so much they can do to replace two of the league's best players.
Over the next two weeks, the Lakers' schedule alternates between games that are winnable short-handed and difficult matchups. They will travel to face the Suns in Phoenix and play two of the East's best teams (the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks) during a subsequent four-game homestand. Sprinkled in are more favorable matchups at the New Orleans Pelicans and at home against the lottery-bound Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic.
The Lakers would certainly love to have at least one of their stars back for a "road" game at Staples Center against the Clippers on April 4 that could prove meaningful in terms of West playoff seeding. Still, I don't think dire scenarios like the Lakers falling out of the top six are realistic unless the stars miss much longer than expected. Before James' injury, FiveThirtyEight's projections gave the Lakers a six-game cushion over the Blazers and Dallas Mavericks, tied for the sixth-best projection in the West with an average of 40 wins.
Possible deadline help?
The Lakers' efforts to add to their roster via trade are complicated by being subject to a hard cap at the luxury-tax apron because they used their non-taxpayer midlevel exception to sign Harrell as a free agent. The Lakers can add up to about $1.7 million in salary, at most, in a trade and have to weigh doing so against the possibility of using that money to sign free agents on the buyout market.
It is possible for the Lakers to take back a larger salary by including their current players in a trade. For example, a package of Wesley Matthews ($3.6 million) and Alfonzo McKinnie ($1.8 million) would allow the Lakers to bring back a player making around $6 million after factoring in the need to sign two players to fill out the roster. (The Lakers currently have two open roster spots after the expiration of the second 10-day contract for Damian Jones, who has been starting for them at center.)
The other complication for the Lakers is that they don't have much to offer in a trade. The only first-round pick the Lakers can deal is in 2027, and their nearest second-round pick comes in 2023. Realistically, the Lakers probably don't have the ability to add the kind of player who would really help them manage the absence of Davis and James. The Lakers' in-season additions are more likely to come via buyouts.
MVP race affected by injuries
As of the All-Star break, James and Joel Embiid were the two favorites to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, one James has made no secret he wants to reclaim for the first time since 2012-13. Now, both players are sidelined by injuries, as Embiid deals with a bone bruise in his left knee.
The impact of injuries is a key reason it's dangerous to start to draw MVP conclusions too early in the season. Staying on the court is a key part of value within an individual regular season. Historically, 10 games missed has been about the cutoff for MVP consideration. The last player to miss more than 10 games in an MVP season was Allen Iverson in 2000-01 (11). Before that, you have to go back to Bill Walton in 1977-78 (an unprecedented 34) for the previous example. (No MVP between Walton and Iverson missed more than seven games.)
At the same time, the importance of games played as an MVP criterion might be fading a bit as teams put more emphasis on resting their stars for the playoffs. During the first 10 years of the 2000s, the average MVP played 96% of his team's games. Over the past five seasons, that has dropped to 92%, with each of the past three (James Harden in 2017-18 and Giannis Antetokounmpo over the past two seasons) missing the equivalent of 10 games.
Either way, there's little question that James and Embiid suffering injuries helps the MVP candidacy of Nikola Jokic, the other top contender based on advanced statistics. And it continues to crack open the door for the past two winners, Antetokounmpo and Harden, whose chances were written off early in the season. Most importantly, the injuries are a reminder that we shouldn't be in a hurry to pick an MVP before the season is near completion.