Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James will miss Friday night's game against the Indiana Pacers after suffering a left elbow contusion in Thursday night's 120-113 loss to the Denver Nuggets, the team announced.
Late in the fourth quarter of Thursday's game in Denver, James took a hard fall on a layup attempt. LeBron landed awkwardly on his left elbow and was lying on the ground in pain before the ball went out of bounds, and play was stopped.
LeBron James (left elbow contusion) has been listed OUT for tonight’s game against the Pacers, the team says.
LeBron suffered the injury after a hard fall in the closing minutes of Lakers-Nuggets on Thursday night 🤕pic.twitter.com/FILh742gJY
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) March 6, 2026
After being helped up and going to the team's bench, James was still grimacing and grabbing his elbow in obvious discomfort. Although James did return to the game after quickly being examined on the bench, his elbow was heavily wrapped in ice during the team's postgame media session in the locker room.
James said he would be “day-to-day” with this injury and that it was a “funny bone situation, but more intense.”
The Lakers did not give an official update specifically on his elbow and have not said if James underwent further testing for his injury. The good news is that his injury is being listed as an “elbow contusion,” and he is not expected to miss extended time.
His next chance to play will be on Sunday at home against the New York Knicks.
Although the Lakers lost on Thursday night in Denver, LeBron had 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting and eight assists. With his third made shot of the contest, James recorded the 15,838th made shot of his career, passing Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar (15,837) for the most field goals made in NBA regular season history.
“At the end of the day, just being linked, and my name being mentioned with some of the greatest ever to play this game, it's always been humbling and pretty cool,” James said after the game. “I grew up watching, reading, analyzing a lot of the greats. If I was ever able to be apart of the NBA, I wanted to put myself in a position where I could be named with some of the greats by doing something like them.
“So that's pretty cool.”
LeBron is also closing in on another record, as once he plays in six more games this season, he will pass Robert Parish (1,611) for the most games played in league history.
In 44 games this season, LeBron has averaged 21.4 points, 7.0 assists, and 5.6 rebounds per game while shooting 50.4 percent from the floor. Friday night will be James' 19th missed game of the season, his most since missing 27 games during the 2022-23 season in Los Angeles.
