Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James will not join the team on their road trip to Sacramento, according to Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times. The Lakers face the Kings on Thursday, giving James only hours to recover from a strained groin, which he suffered in the third quarter of a 127-101 win over the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day.

James sustained the injury early in the third quarter of Tuesday's game, and exited the court at the 7:51 mark of the same quarter, failing to return after the team took proper precaution. He was listed as day-to-day after his Wednesday morning MRI came back clean, revealing no additional structural damage.

Head coach Luke Walton hinted at his star player possibly facing an absence, as the Lakers will likely err in the side of caution and nip this one in the bud in hopes of neutralizing any risk of re-injury, which could keep him out additional games.

The Lakers will have to toe the line carefully here, as they can't drop many games, separated with the eighth-place Kings by only 1.5 games in a tightly-contested Western Conference.

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A Lakers staffer told Bill Oram of The Athletic that it could take as few as 10 absences from The King to potentially derail the Lakers' playoff chances, but it could take even less than that, considering the sheer volume of teams vying for a postseason spot.

Los Angeles faces a tough end-of-year schedule, one that could get even tougher without James, as they take on the Kings on Thursday, the Clippers on Friday and Sacramento once again on Sunday, only to open the new year against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

At 20-14, there's very little room for error, considering teams from first to eighth place are only separated by four games.