Let’s take a closer look at LeBron James’s knee injury from the playoffs, his recovery timeline and whether that’ll impact the start of next season for the Lakers.
The Lakers’ elimination from the playoffs left a lasting impact in many ways.
As they were being bounced out of the playoffs in frustrating fashion, insult was added to injury when LeBron James collided with Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo.
LeBron was able to play through it, but reports in the coming days revealed that James had suffered a Grade 2 ligament tear of the medial collateral ligament (MCL).
With the Lakers now over a month into their off-season, updates have been relatively sparse and the question arises as to whether this knee injury will impact LeBron’s readiness for next season, which he expected to return for.
To understand that, let’s first take a closer look at the injury.
The MCL sits on the inside of the knee — the “medial” side — and is one of four major stabilizing knee ligaments, along with the lateral collateral ligament (LCL), anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and posterior cruciate ligament (PCL).
The primary function of the MCL is protecting against what’s called “valgus force” against the knee, AKA inward force. When that force is too high, the ligament gets overstretched and damaged.
If you look closely at LeBron and DiVincenzo’s collision, you’ll see LeBron’s left knee gets pushed inward and he immediately grabs at the inside of it. This is very typical of an MCL injury.
These ligament injuries are generally classified into three grades — Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3 — based on increasing severity.
As I said earlier, LeBron reportedly has a Grade 2 MCL injury.
The typical return timeline for elite athletes with a Grade 2 MCL injury is 4-8 weeks, which is why LeBron’s status for the rest of the playoffs — if the Lakers had advanced — would have been in doubt.
Further, these injuries can also be accompanied by a bone bruise, which, in rare instances, can create a longer timeline. A nagging bone bruise is what kept Kendrick Nunn out for essentially the entire season during his lone year with the team and also what led to prolonged recoveries for Lonzo Ball from knee and ankle ligament sprains during his tenure with the team.
I would like to re-emphasize that those instances are the outliers. They aren’t common.
Although no injury is obviously ideal, the timing of this injury is, in fact, as close to ideal as it comes. That’s because LeBron has said on multiple occasions — most recently on a “Mind the Game” podcast episode with Steve Nash — that he takes around a month or so off after the season to allow himself to physically and mentally recover and reset.
Those four-ish weeks are immediately a big chunk of the recovery timetable. He would just adapt his schedule and activity level to be able to rehab while still taking that time off, and then have a more gradual, methodical ramp-up process compared to his usual offseason.
The other positive with this injury is that the MCL has very good blood supply, which means it heals quite well. For that reason, if there’s one major knee ligament you want to injure, it’s the MCL! Oftentimes, even Grade 3 full ruptures aren’t operated on because the ligament can reattach due to that robust blood supply and the healing factors that come along with it.
With all this in mind and what we currently know, I would feel very confident in saying that the injury wouldn’t impact LeBron much in terms of preparation for, and including, the 2025 season.
That confidence is further buoyed by recent comments from the King himself, who told the Associated Press that his knee is feeling “good” and the time off will allow him to “make sure I’m as close to 100% as possible when training camp begins in late September.”
As always, I’ll keep you updated if anything changes or we learn more about the situation.
Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT has a doctorate in physical therapy from Northern Arizona University, and runs his own in-person and online sports medicine and performance business, 3CB Performance, in West LA and Valencia, CA and combines his movement expertise and fitness training background to rehab & train elite athletes.
He also works at a hospital — giving him experience with patients in the immediate healthcare setting and neurological patients (post stroke, post brain injury) — and has been practicing for over 5 years. Brar is additionally training at UCLA’s mindful awareness research center (MARC), has a background in youth basketball coaching and analyzes the Lakers from a medical and skills perspective for Silver Screen and Roll and on his own YouTube Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @3cbPerformance, on Instagram, and on his weekly Substack 3CB Quick HIITS