{"id":383841,"date":"2026-01-01T02:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T02:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/383841\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T02:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T02:38:07","slug":"lakers-notes-hachimura-lebron-identity-tpes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/383841\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Notes: Hachimura, LeBron, Identity, TPEs"},"content":{"rendered":"

After missing two games last week due to right groin soreness, Lakers forward Rui Hachimura<\/a> sat out on Tuesday vs. Detroit as a result of right calf soreness. The team is optimistic that it won\u2019t be a long-term issue, writes Khobi Price of The Orange County Register<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll miss a couple games,\u201d head coach JJ Redick said. \u201cThen we\u2019ll get him ramped up and, hopefully, he\u2019s playing again in the next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN (Twitter link<\/a>), the expectation is that Hachimura will miss games on Friday and Sunday vs. Memphis. The Lakers will play a back-to-back set in New Orleans and San Antonio next Tuesday and Wednesday, so presumably the hope is that Hachimura will return for one or both of those games.<\/p>\n

We have more on the Lakers:<\/p>\n

While LeBron James<\/a>\u2018 performance on or around his birthdays have often served as reminders of his unprecedented longevity as an NBA star, he looked mortal in a loss to the Pistons on Tuesday, writes Dan Woike of The Athletic<\/a>. Celebrating his 41st birthday, James made just 6-of-17 shots from the floor for 17 points and committed five turnovers, while the Lakers were outscored by 16 points during his 32 minutes.
\nMark Medina of RG.org<\/a> spoke to an NBA assistant coach and a pair of scouts about what the Lakers can expect from a 41-year-old version of James, as well as his fit alongside standout guards Luka Doncic<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a>. \u201cWhen all three of them are out there, it\u2019s hard to watch LeBron,\u201d the assistant said. \u201cHe\u2019s not completely uninvolved. But it\u2019s just weird not to see him touch the ball so much. It\u2019s odd watching him out there. When it\u2019s just him and one of them, (head coach) JJ (Redick) is able to find a way to keep LeBron involved and run ATOs for him and utilize his passing out of the post through different actions. But when it\u2019s all three of them, it doesn\u2019t seem like there is enough of a pie to split up.\u201d
\nAlthough the Lakers have a 20-11 record, they\u2019ve allowed more points than they\u2019ve scored this season, and they had the NBA\u2019s No. 29 defense in December. They\u2019re still searching for an identity, writes Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times<\/a>.
\nJames cited injuries as one reason for the Lakers\u2019 recent struggles, according to ESPN\u2019s Dave McMenamin<\/a>. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had a full team all year,\u201d James said. \u201cWe got some very important guys out right now. And obviously I started the year being out. And having our All-Star two guard (Reaves) out, and Rui is now out. And Gabe (Vincent<\/a> has) been out for a minute. Jaxson (Hayes)<\/a> just came back. There\u2019s been a lot of in and out. So that\u2019s very hard to get a rhythm of chemistry on the floor with guys that you know you\u2019re going to play with every night. \u2026 But still no excuse. We still got to go out and execute.\u201d
\nA pair of Lakers trade exceptions<\/a> expired earlier this week following the one-year anniversary of the deal that sent Maxwell Lewis<\/a> and D\u2019Angelo Russell<\/a> to Brooklyn. Neither exception was significant though \u2014 the larger of the two was worth just $1.9MM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After missing two games last week due to right groin soreness, Lakers forward Rui Hachimura sat out on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,30097,63,726,7896,11473,53897,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-383841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-austin-reaves","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-lebron-james","13":"tag-luka-doncic","14":"tag-rui-hachimura","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}