On February 4, Beijing time, in an NBA regular season game that ended today, the Lakers lost back-to-back to the Clippers 110-111. After losing this game, the Lakers' record came to 25 wins and 28 losses, and with only 29 games left in the regular season, the Lakers did not seem to have come out of the quagmire, and they are still only ranked ninth in the West, 1.5 wins away from the eighth Clippers in the West, if they can't win more in the next and play better competitive form, then they may not even be able to enter the playoffs, even if they barely play the playoffs, it is difficult to say that they can win the playoffs.
At this stage, the Lakers have needed James's return more than ever, and today, The Athletic reporter Shams Charania reported on James' injury recovery progress on the TV show, and also expressed the Lakers' current anxiety and desire for James's comeback.
Shams Charania said: "LeBron James is going to continue to deal with that knee injury and I was told he was dealing with some sort of irritating pain. LeBron will use a daily treatment, managed injury recovery program. Tonight, he is expected to miss his fifth consecutive game, away to the Clippers, although theoretically they are still playing at Crypto.com Arena. However, he is expected to miss this game and he is officially listed as an unlikely state to play. He will continue to recover in the coming days, continue to receive treatment, and their hope is that he will return in the next few days. ”
In fact, whether James can make a quick comeback is not only of great significance to the Lakers, but also very important to himself, because this season James has a great opportunity to compete for the second scoring champion of his career, and he is currently tied for second in the league with Embiid with an average of 29.1 points per game, only 0.2 points away from Durant, the first in the league, but the problem is that the number of appearances of James is seriously insufficient.
According to statistics, if James wants to qualify as the top scorer at the end of the season, he must play 22 of the Remaining 29 games of the Lakers this season (that is, 70% attendance), and James has now played in 36 games. But it's important to note that in the Lakers' remaining 30 games this season, there are still 4 back-to-backs. Injuries, combined with a difficult schedule, could lead to James eventually losing his qualification to compete for the top scorer because he couldn't play enough games.
To put it bluntly, as long as James misses more than 7 games, he will not be able to win the scoring king because of the lack of appearances, although for James now, the glory of the scoring king does not add much to his historical status, but fans still hope that if there is a chance, James can add a few more awards to his honor book.
It is worth mentioning that after the Loss of the Lakers today, James also personally tweeted and encouraged his teammates: "We just need to defend a round at the last minute!" However, on the second night of back-to-back, the brothers fought the whole game. In fact, for the Lakers, they are far from victory in this game, and may really only be a James' existence.
At the same time, from james's opportunity to compete for the scoring king this season, it can be seen that this season he is still in excellent competitive state, no one knows how long James can maintain such a state, whether it can last until next season, after all, James at that time will be 38 years old, so although this season is difficult, fans still hope that the Lakers can carry out more operations to strengthen, do not waste James's last peak.