{"id":703996,"date":"2026-04-07T20:36:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T20:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703996\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T20:36:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T20:36:35","slug":"report-lebron-james-to-sit-leaving-lakers-short-handed-vs-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703996\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: LeBron James to sit, leaving Lakers short-handed vs. Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:Field Level Media;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fieldlevelmedia.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"Field Level Media\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"312\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/bc126ea0-acd9-11ef-adff-76a94cf3e57a.png\"\/><\/a>Tue, April 7, 2026 at 8:16 PM UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1099\" height=\"715\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a848fff92b7987e1df55c0b7fff679e5.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Apr 5, 2026; Dallas, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) controls the ball against the Dallas Mavericks during the second half at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p> (Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Lakers will reportedly keep LeBron James out of Tuesday&#8217;s home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, leaving the team extremely short-handed against the defending NBA champions.<\/p>\n<p>James will reportedly not play for injury management on a left foot injury that has persisted all season. The Lakers already were without guards Luka Doncic (hamstring) and Austin Reaves (oblique).<\/p>\n<p>Doncic and Reaves were both injured during Los Angeles&#8217; 139-96 road loss to the Thunder on Thursday. Neither is expected to play over the final four games of the regular season.<\/p>\n<p>James, 41, is scoring 20.8 points with 7.1 assists and 6.1 rebounds in 57 games (all starts) this season. Over his record 23 NBA seasons, the four-time MVP has averaged 26.8 points with 7.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers (50-28) were on a four-game winning streak and were on a stretch of 16 victories in 18 games when they lost at Oklahoma City last week. They are now on a two-game skid after a 134-128 loss at Dallas on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles is fourth in the Western Conference heading into Tuesday&#8217;s game, one game ahead of the fifth-place Houston Rockets. The Lakers have already clinched a top-six spot in the conference for the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Field Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tue, April 7, 2026 at 8:16 PM UTC Apr 5, 2026; Dallas, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[1013,7,686,149,4057,194,185,251,150,368,166,6,475,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-703996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-dallasmavericks","13":"tag-houston-rockets","14":"tag-lebron-james","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","17":"tag-luka-doncic","18":"tag-mavericks","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-oklahoma-city","21":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116365348724464091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}