LeBron James' Injury Management Will Decide Lakers Playoff Seeding

The Lakers forward is prioritizing health over postseason positioning.

LeBron James / Justin Ford/GettyImages

On Wednesday night the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies, 136-124. LeBron James recorded a triple-double in the win by way of 23 points, 14 rebounds, and 12 assists, looking fresh after taking Tuesday's game off to rest his sore ankle. The Lakers forward told assembled media that he planned to prioritize injury management over playoff positioning as Los Angeles enters the stretch run of the season.

"Just be very strategic," James said of his decisions on when to play and when to rest. "Obviously, understanding and seeing how my ankle and my foot is feeling. But just being very smart about it, obviously. We are where we are, but our health has always been the most important for our ballclub. Not just one individual. But for me looking out for myself when it comes to injury and knowing my foot and knowing my ankle and how it reacts, and how it's been over the last couple of years, it's just always keeping a hefty eye on it."

A healthy James should absolutely be a bigger priority for the Lakers than pushing for a higher playoff seed. As of Thursday, Los Angeles occupies the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference and is in no real danger of falling out of the postseason picture entirely. They hold a 2.5-game lead over the No. 10 seed Warriors and a 3.5-game lead over the No. 11 seed Houston Rockets. The Lakers would obviously prefer to avoid the Play-In Tournament, but not at the cost of pushing their superstar player to his physical limit nearing the end of his age-39 season.

It will make for a delicate dance, though. The Lakers have two more back-to-back sets scheduled over the remainder of the regular season. If they adopt the same strategy they did this week, LeBron will miss one leg of those back-to-back stretches. In other words he's likely to miss at least two of the team's nine remaining games. Whether those games are wins or losses could very well be the difference between facing the Denver Nuggets or Minnesota Timberwovles in the first round of the playoffs, assuming they get past the Play-In games.

Los Angeles is entirely capable of winning games without James. Anthony Davis helped lead the Lakers to a big win over a healthy Milwaukee Bucks team on Tuesday. Whether LeBron suits up is not the only factor at play on gameday. But obviously, this Lakers team will go as far as LeBron can take them. How far LeBron can take them will be largely determined by who they draw in the Play-In Tournament and/or the first round of the playoffs. Thus, where the Lakers end up when the season draws to a close is pretty important.

Not as important as making sure James is ready to go for postseason play, though. He knows it and the team does, too. How his ankle holds up will matter a lot more in the playoffs. How it holds up over the next two weeks, though, will play a big role in where the Lakers will find themselves once the end-of-season dust settles.

Liam McKeone is an editor at The Big Lead.