Lakers LeBron James on the Challenges of Teammates Entering COVID-19 Protocols

LeBron James spoke after Thursday night's game about the struggles of his teammates entering the NBA's health and safety protocols.

As of right now, the NBA has set new rules and regulations to combat the spread of COVID-19. However, that has left many teams forced to scramble to either sign players or adjust their lineups, especially for the Lakers. So far the Lakers have been without Avery Bradley, Austin Reaves, and Malik Monk. Initially, that list was much longer, but L.A. got some of their players back, which gave them a little breathing room. That was until Trevor Ariza became the next player who would be out because he entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols.

With that said, Thursday night ended in another brutal loss to a team that L.A. should have been able to beat. The Lakers faced off against the San Antonio Spurs and lost 138-to-110. Almost a 30 point loss for L.A. as they battle injuries and postive COVID-19 tests.

After Thursday night’s game, LeBron James talked about how this is unknown territory, and how it is difficult to succeed when most of the Laker’s defensive players are making their way to the NBA’s health and safety protocols.

“Well this is the unknown, obviously, you don’t know. This is like I said, I say every year has its own challenges and this is another year where you can literally have one guy one night and the next night you won’t. You really don’t know, it’s up in the air,” said James.

“It’s literally a crapshoot every single time you take a test at this point on who is negative and who is positive. You just gotta see who is available and go from there.”

One of the biggest issues all season was that the Lakers have not been able to keep up defensively. Now that Anthony Davis, Trevor Ariza, Austin Reaves, and many more are not going to be out on the court, L.A. will find themselves in a deficit, no matter who they face.

Overall, the glue that is holding this team together is LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. Even though Westbrook is not producing as much as James, they are a big factor in why the Lakers have been able to hold on during each game. If they did not have the star power from those two players, L.A. would look a lot worse.