Lakers Medical Analysis: Breaking down LeBron James’ right foot injury

Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James injured his right foot vs. the Dallas Mavericks (in what looked to be a relatively innocuous move) during the teams resounding 27-point, come-from-behind victory on Sunday.

James was able to play on using his patented “just tie the laces tighter” technique but further examination revealed that he would need some time off to allow the injury to heal.

In the early days following the injury, we didn’t really have much information — and if you do follow me on YouTube, I made this video on why it’s difficult to speculate on this type of foot injury in the early days — but we have now gotten much more information from multiple sources on the injury in the days since.

Accordingly, I took a closer look at what we know thus far through my medical lens (I also specialize in the foot and ankle) and what to expect in the near future from James’ return to play process.

The Lakers will of course hope to have James back and hit the ground running, but this can be an up-and-down, rollercoaster process — especially since James has been dealing with foot injuries all season and this was a re-aggravation. All of that will go into the Lakers’ risk/reward calculation.

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There are no guarantees in the process, so I have to stress the importance of focusing on the day-to-day here and not jumping to any conclusions based on what you may or may not see over the next days or weeks. As usual, I’ll keep you updated as we learn more.

Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT has a doctorate in physical therapy from Northern Arizona University, and runs his own in-person and online sports medicine and performance business, 3CB Performance, in West LA and Valencia, CA and partners with Quantum Performance in which he further combines his movement expertise and fitness training background to rehab & train elite athletes. He also works at a hospital — giving him experience with patients in the immediate healthcare setting and neurological patients (post stroke, post brain injury) — and has been practicing for over 5 years. Brar is additionally training at UCLA’s mindful awareness research center (MARC), has a background in youth basketball coaching and analyzes the Lakers from a medical and skills perspective for Silver Screen and Roll and on his own YouTube Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @3cbPerformance.