LeBron James will practice with the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday in El Segundo, Calif., a league source said Sunday, one of the final steps before making his season debut.
James has been recovering and rehabbing from a sciatic nerve irritation, which has sidelined him from team workouts since before the start of training camp. Since the start of the regular season, the team has gone 10-4 and managed to win without James, Austin Reaves and Luka Dončić at different times.
“I think it’s great for the group with the possibility of us getting healthy, that certainly makes you excited,” Redick said Saturday when asked about getting James back. “But then, like I told you guys in training camp, we had 24 starting lineups last year. Like the soft tissue injuries, all this stuff, it’s just part of the NBA. And whether it’s we’ve had an illness run through the team this week while we’re on the road. We’ve had a number of guys that have played through it, a number of guys that haven’t been able to play through it. Those things are just gonna happen throughout an NBA season.
“But the togetherness of the group and the intent of the group every night outside of a couple games has been really good.”
While the Lakers were on a five-game road trip that ended with back-to-back wins, James was assigned to the Lakers’ G League team in Los Angeles. In addition to practices with the South Bay Lakers, James went through individual workouts without setback.
He’s yet to practice with the team this season, his 23rd in the NBA.
The Lakers play just once next week — on Tuesday against the Utah Jazz in Los Angeles. The Lakers don’t play again until Sunday, strangely enough, in Utah. While no one has publicly defined a target, his return seems imminent.
“There’s a lot of excitement to the things that we can do as a group and I spoke about it the other day. Y’all know how he is. He analyzes everything to a tee,” Austin Reaves said. “I’m sure he’s sitting at his house while we’re playing, probably drinking a little bit of wine and watching the game and seeing what exactly he can do to help this team be successful. Obviously it’s LeBron and just his presence and his ability is going to lift the team.
“But he’s a winner at the end of the day and he has been his whole career, and I expect him to do nothing but come in and be one of the best players.”
With the Lakers missing James, Rui Hachimura and Marcus Smart on Saturday, Redick started Bronny James in the team’s 119-95 road win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
“How about Bronny James starting in the NBA and LeBron’s assigned to the G League?” Reaves said. “That’s awesome.”
— The Athletic’s Sam Amick contributed to this report.