{"id":241171,"date":"2025-10-21T14:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T14:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/241171\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T14:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T14:08:07","slug":"why-lebron-james-is-not-playing-for-lakers-vs-steph-currys-warriors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/241171\/","title":{"rendered":"Why LeBron James is not playing for Lakers vs. Steph Curry&#8217;s Warriors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES \u2014 Arguably the best player in NBA history will not suit up against the Warriors on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n<p>LeBron James has been ruled out of the Warriors-Lakers season-opener in Los Angeles as he continues to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hopkinsmedicine.org\/health\/conditions-and-diseases\/sciatica\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">deal with sciatica<\/a>, which causes nerve pain in the lower back and upper legs.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2025\/10\/09\/lebron-james-to-miss-start-of-lakers-2025-26-season-with-nerve-pain\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">superstar will be re-evaluated in early November<\/a>, which means the league\u2019s all-time leading scorer (42,184 points) is guaranteed to miss anywhere from the first five to nine games of the Lakers\u2019 regular season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew that he was dealing with the nerve irritation,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick said during the preseason. \u201cYou hope that he\u2019s back soon. Those things can be tricky. We knew this going into camp, so it wasn\u2019t like it\u2019s changed anything for how we want to practice or what our philosophies are with the preseason games.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As a member of the Cavaliers, James faced Steph Curry\u2019s Warriors in four consecutive NBA Finals from 2015 to 2019, with 2016 being James\u2019 only victory. As a member of the Lakers, James helped Los Angeles eliminate the Warriors in the second round of the 2023 playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Despite approaching his 41st birthday, James remains one of the game\u2019s top players. He was named to the 2024-25 All-NBA second team, averaging 24.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game while making 70 starts.<\/p>\n<p>The cupboard is not bare for the Lakers, though. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2025\/10\/20\/warriors-lakers-luka-doncic-lebron-james-steph-curry-nba-opener\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Superstar Luka Doncic<\/a> will lead the offense, and Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura should give Warriors coach Steve Kerr and the defense fits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe looks like he\u2019s in good shape, but he\u2019s still the same player he\u2019s been since the moment he stepped on the court years ago,\u201d Kerr said about Doncic on Monday. \u201cUnstoppable force with his pace and strength, the way he shoots the ball behind his head with the step-backs, you can\u2019t get there to challenge the shot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Arguably the best player in NBA history will not suit up against the Warriors on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2356,2243,355,99],"class_list":["post-241171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-california","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}