LeBron James officially returns from foot injury against Bulls on Sunday

Mar 26, 2023 - 6:51 PM

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Seemingly out of nowhere, LeBron James will make his return to the lineup on Sunday for the Lakers after missing three weeks with a foot tendon injury. After reports late last week indicated it would be the end of the season before he’d be closer to a return, LeBron was upgraded to doubtful, then questionable, then was available for his return.

To say this all came as a surprise based on reports around LeBron would be quite the understatement. As recently as Thursday, reports of LeBron being re-evaluated with a timeline still placing his return in the final week of the season.

However, as the weekend progressed, LeBron was upgraded to doubtful which raised an eyebrow, but didn’t change much about his return date. It wasn’t until Sunday morning when he was upgraded to questionable and it was revealed he was going to go through pregame warm-ups that it became more of a reality that he could actually play.

To his credit, LeBron pushed back against the notion on Thursday that he had been re-evaluated or that his timeline for return was correct. And between the constant work behind-the-scenes he had reportedly been doing and the comments made by Dennis Schröder, it seems pretty clear in hindsight he was always ahead of schedule.

It’s also pretty clear that any of the reporting around LeBron involved a fair amount of guessing and was pretty far off track. Kudos to Klutch and LeBron for keeping everything tight-lipped as his return will come well ahead of expectations.

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