In his 22 seasons, LeBron James has never missed the first game of the season.
Until this upcoming season, because James will miss the Los Angeles Lakers opener and more due to a right sciatica nerve issue that he suffered during a workout in late July.
Fans around the world have been wondering how serious this was, or if it was an attempt to buy time for him to make his decision to retire.
Only days ago, James was reportedly going to be monitoring the Lakers’ status as he recovered from his injury, but what that exactly means is unclear.
However, ESPN insider Shams Charania shared a realistic period of time that James may return to the court.
“The Lakers and LeBron are looking at around mid-November as a realistic debut for him, and October 30th would be the earliest that the Lakers would be officially reevaluating LeBron James,” Charania said Wednesday.
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“It is expected that he will need at least at least a few weeks after that point, a source told me tonight (October 15th), he will be taking a patient approach with this rehab for his nerve injury.”
“The ramp-up process for this will be a lot of basketball shape conditioning work.”
It seems as if James won’t make his debut until 10-15 games into the season.
Every offseason, James trains like the superhuman he is, but this injury prevented him from doing that.
While it may be possible that he is healthy before his expected timeline, it may take some time for the 40-year-old. to get his conditioning back.
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