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LeBron James is rapidly approaching his 35th birthday and is once again facing a similar question amid a groin injury: Should he sit out a few games?
The answer, is not simple by any means.
The Los Angeles Lakers star has already made his stance known on load and injury management: As long as I'm healthy, I will play.
Yet this has naturally escalated, the same way as the Lakers' rivalry with the Los Angeles Clippers has gone from fun casual banter to bitter ground-gaining arguments.
This starts and ends with Kawhi Leonard and his decision to pass on the Lakers this summer and sign for the longtime noisy neighbors — the Clippers — now winners of two games against the purple and gold after a Christmas Day comeback effort.
James re-aggravated a right groin injury that partly forced him out against an earlier matchup against the Denver Nuggets — his first absence of the 2019-20 season after missing 17 straight games last season due to an injury to the left side of his groin.
The King collided with Patrick Beverley attempting to take a charge and is now in question to miss games, as members of the Lakers organization have approached James about the urgency to sit out and rehab his injured groin until he has fully recovered.
Yet James has become the staple of the gladiator fans clamor for — a player willing to suit up and play so long as he can stand on his own two feet. In ways, he has become the antithesis of his Clippers' counterpart Kawhi Leonard, who has meticulously sat out in every back-to-back affair since Apr. 2017.
This has quickly become the face of an iron man versus the face of load/injury management — and James sitting out could smear an image that has endeared him to fans beyond loyalist Angelenos.
James showed signs of mortality last season for the first time, as a Christmas Day blowout win over the Golden State Warriors was obscured by news of his injury — one that would force him to miss more than a month and see the Lakers fall off playoff contention to a precipice of no return.
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The circumstances are different this time around. The Lakers are first in the West with a two-game lead over the Clippers and 2.5 games ahead of the Denver Nuggets, but they have lost four straight games and are actively looking for answers to a puzzling skid.
Internally, the Lakers had made it a goal to not lose two games in a row this season, as they got off to a blazing 24-3 start — winning 24 of their next 26 games after a season-opening loss to the Clippers. Since then, they have dropped games against the Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, Denver Nuggets, and now the Clippers — a stretch many expected would test them.
As seen during a 128-104 blowout loss to the Nuggets, by far their worst of the season, the Lakers are largely dependent on James and his playmaking talent, as well as his renewed impetus for defense.
Losing him during this stretch of the season could result in a massive shake of confidence, especially if the Lakers lose against a shaky Portland Trail Blazers team and the Dallas Mavericks to close out the calendar year.
The margin for error is no longer large enough, and it won't take long before the Clippers start clicking, now that they're fully healthy and can gain some confidence. Ten of the Clippers' next 14 games will be against sub-.500 teams, which will come before they face the Lakers once again on Jan. 28 for what can be a decisive regular-season outing.
James' groin injury could further aggravate if he keeps trying to play on it, though there will be no sense of a timeline if he decides to sit until he's fully healed. The King did say his injury is not nearly as grave as the one he suffered around this time last year, but even sitting out a couple of weeks could see the Lakers struggle to navigate a schedule that will see them play seven of nine games on the road before facing the Clippers on Jan. 28.
The Lakers are clearly concerned about his groin, hence the haste in reaching out to urge him to rest, but a mix of personal pride and a sense of responsibility could guilt James into playing through it and continue to be the gladiator many have expected him to be, even as he crosses into his mid-30s.
