LeBron James will not play basketball again this season. The Los Angeles Lakers star suffered an ankle sprain last month, and while he has tried to play in the games since, the team announced on Friday afternoon that James will be shut down for the final two games of the 2021-22 campaign.
“LeBron James’ left ankle was recently reevaluated by Lakers medical staff, and it was determined that due to the ankle sprain James suffered in a game on March 27th, he will miss the remainder of the 2021–22 NBA season to allow for continued healing and an expected full recovery,” the team said in a statement.
With the Lakers eliminated from any sort of postseason contention, all the drama surrounding a potential James returned was tied to whether or not he would play in two more games and become eligible for the league’s scoring title. James is averaging 30.3 points per game for Los Angeles, but has only appeared in 56 games on the year — James would need to play in 58, or 70 percent of the Lakers’ games, to be eligible for the award.
The team does have two more games this year, as they play host to the Thunder on Friday night before traveling to Denver on Sunday. James previously ruled himself out for the rest of the year in an April Fools’ Day tweet, only to play that evening. That will end up being the final game in which he appeared during the Lakers’ disappointing season.
Source: https://uproxx.com/dimemag/lakers-shut-down-lebron-james-ankle-injury-news/
