Lebron James Says Elbow ‘pretty Sore’ After Fall During Nuggets Loss

After a short string of games at full health, the Lakers walked out of Thursday’s game in Denver with 40% of their starting lineup unable to finish the game.

Deandre Ayton played only briefly on in the first quarter before exiting after just 4:30 with left knee soreness. LeBron James, meanwhile, played much more of the contest before suffering his own injury that forced him out of the game.

With four minutes to go in the fourth quarter, LeBron drove to the rim and finished through contact from Nikola Jokić. That contact, however, knocked LeBron to the ground and into a cameraman, where he hit his elbow.

Immediately, LeBron clutched his arm in clear pain. Eventually, he walked off the court while still flexing his arm, trying to get feeling back into it.

After a short stint on the bench, LeBron returned to the game, but never took a shot during his time on the floor. While he attempted to tough it out, though, he could not finish the game, opting out of attempting to in-bound the ball with the Lakers down five and 20 seconds left.

“It’s pretty sore right now,” LeBron said. “What was I feeling? Feeling like one of them funny bone situations but super more intense.”

Honestly, that’s a very funny description that everyone also immediately understands the pain he was feeling. Take a hit to the funny bone and you need 10 minutes for it to stop tingling. Take a “super more intense” hit to the funny bone and not be LeBron James and you might need 2-3 business days to recover.

LeBron was icing his elbow after the game, but didn’t have much more in the way of clarity of how severe his injury was.

“We’ll see what happens over the next couple days,” LeBron said. “Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and it doesn’t feel too much worse than it is now or if it feels better, that’d be great.”

The Lakers immediately return to the court on Friday against the Pacers, so we’ll learn pretty quickly the severity of his injury. In theory, a game against one of the worst teams in the league is a good one to miss if injured.

Following that game, though, the Lakers play New York and Minnesota at home, two games that will be far tougher challenges.

Hopefully, LeBron’s “super more intense” funny bone situation is a short term injury and not another thing that lingers this season.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.