{"id":544471,"date":"2026-03-16T17:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544471\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T17:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:35:08","slug":"why-bill-simmons-thinks-lakers-star-lebron-james-recent-injury-absence-was-so-timely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544471\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Bill Simmons thinks Lakers star LeBron James\u2019 recent injury absence was so \u2018timely\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Bill Simmons thinks Lakers star LeBron James\u2019 recent injury absence was so \u2018timely\u2019<\/a> appeared first on ClutchPoints<\/a>. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Recently, the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> picked up their fifth straight win with an overtime home victory over the Denver Nuggets. This was an epic contest that featured a game-tying shot from Austin Reaves<\/a> in regulation, and a game-winning jumper from Luka Doncic in the final seconds of the extra period.<\/p>\n

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The Lakers had Doncic, Reaves, and LeBron James<\/a> all on the floor on Saturday, which has been somewhat of a rarity this season. Recently, The Ringer\u2019s Bill Simmons<\/a> broke down why<\/a> he believes that James\u2019 multi-game absence of a couple weeks ago was actually a positive thing for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had a timely LeBron injury, as weird as that sounds. He only left for a couple of games. It reset the calibration, and he came back, and it\u2019s been interesting to watch him reinvent himself as this basically third option. Can I rebound? Make some hustle plays?\u201d said Simmons, per The Ringer on X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n

Indeed, many have noticed that James has appeared more willing to take a backseat to both Doncic and Reaves since his return from injury last week, and so far, the results have been hard to argue with.<\/p>\n

When all three stars are on the floor, there have been concerns that their skillsets might cancel one another out, with Reaves not getting the on-ball reps he needs to be the best version of himself, and little to no ball movement existing within the offense.<\/p>\n

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However, if James remains committed to being more of a \u201cglue guy\u201d on offense who can fill in gaps and make plays for himself when needed, it could be the missing ingredient to maximize an objectively flawed Lakers roster down the stretch of the year.<\/p>\n

Related: ClutchPoints\u2019 2025-26 NBA Power Rankings Week 21: Lakers\u2019 late-season surge into top 5<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: L2M report reveals critical bad call that cost Nuggets in Lakers loss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Bill Simmons thinks Lakers star LeBron James\u2019 recent injury absence was so \u2018timely\u2019 appeared first on ClutchPoints.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,30097,63,726,50024,1662,269728,7896,481,7232,11473,85],"class_list":["post-544471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-austin-reaves","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-bill-simmons","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-lebron-injury","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544471","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=544471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}