{"id":188044,"date":"2025-10-03T20:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T20:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188044\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T20:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T20:10:07","slug":"luka-doncic-lebron-james-continue-unfortunate-nba-preseason-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188044\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic, LeBron James Continue Unfortunate NBA Preseason Trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2025 NBA Preseason tipped off on Thursday with the Abu Dhabi game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks. Over in Australia, the New Orleans Pelicans played an out-of-league opponent. Next up, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Phoenix Suns will battle it out.<\/p>\n

Will LeBron James<\/a> and Luka Doncic<\/a> be a part of the action? Unfortunately, an NBA preseason trend will continue on Friday night, as some of the game\u2019s biggest stars are getting the night off.<\/p>\n

Since the Lakers fired up training camp, the superstar forward LeBron James has been dealing with a glute issue. Well before the Lakers reached gameday against the Suns, they knew the status of LeBron.<\/p>\n

LA head coach JJ Redick blamed \u201cnerve irritation\u201d for the star\u2019s issue. The Lakers are going to carefully ramp up LeBron as he enters his 23rd season in the NBA. Considering all that LeBron has accomplished throughout his career, the Lakers would probably feel comfortable in letting him sit out for the entire preseason, but they haven\u2019t confirmed that much just yet.<\/p>\n

\"LeBron<\/p>\n

Apr 9, 2025; Dallas, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) and forward LeBron James (23) during the game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Lakers at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images \/ Jerome Miron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

At the very least, the Lakers know that Luka Doncic is entering training camp in pretty good shape. The veteran guard just spent a chunk of his summer competing for Slovenia at the EuroBasket games. <\/p>\n

According to Khobi Price<\/a>, the Lakers have decided to rest Doncic through at least two preseason games. Getting the superstar guard to the opening night healthy is a clear priority for Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

Add Luka and LeBron to a list that includes Joel Embiid, Paul George, and OG Anunoby. <\/p>\n

The Knicks believed to have Anunoby in good shape heading into Thursday\u2019s game, but the veteran wing was ruled out in the hours leading up to the game.<\/p>\n

\"Joel<\/p>\n

Dec 13, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam (43) passes the ball between Philadelphia 76ers forward Paul George (8) and center Joel Embiid (21) during the second quarter at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images \/ Bill Streicher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

As for the Sixers, they unsurprisingly sat out their two highest-paid players. While George seemed to be making good progress with his recovery after getting shut down early last season, the veteran sharpshooter suffered a knee-related setback during his offseason training. He hasn\u2019t made his training camp debut just yet, and doesn\u2019t have a timeline in place.<\/p>\n

Embiid underwent a second knee surgery during the 2025-2026 season. He seems close to returning, participating in most of Sixers practice before leaving for Abu Dhabi, but he was in street clothes for the first game against the Knicks. There is a strong chance he could be in a similar scenario on Saturday. <\/p>\n

More Fastbreak on SI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2025 NBA Preseason tipped off on Thursday with the Abu Dhabi game between the Philadelphia 76ers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-188044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}