Lakers receive brutal injury update regarding LeBron James' foot

Winning four of its last five games since the NBA trade deadline with a revamped roster, the Los Angeles Lakers' playoffs chances seemed more likely than it has all season — until tragedy struck.

Although the Lakers pulled off a season-high 27-point comeback (the largest comeback of any team this season) against the Mavericks on Sunday, their star and leader LeBron James went down hard on the floor, injuring his right foot. It appeared that James said ‘I heard it pop’ after crashing the deck.

Despite being hurt, James finished out the game due to the playoff implications and scored 26 points, grabbing eight rebounds in the team’s comeback victory.

“I definitely wasn’t going to the locker room and not finish the game. The importance of this game and then the momentum that we had, I felt like we could steal one after being down,” James said.

Reports have been released stating that the Lakers expect James to miss several weeks due to Sunday’s foot injury.

With only 21 games remaining for Los Angeles, should James be out multiple weeks could be daunting for the Lakers’ postseason hopes as it now will have to rely more heavily on its newer and younger players, along with an injury-prone Anthony Davis down the line.

Jarred Vanderbilt, who is coming off a 15-point, 17-rebound performance on Sunday, will need to maintain a similar level of consistency with him now taking over James’ role at the 4.