Let's take a closer look at the Lakers’ strategy on back-to-backs and how it applies to injury risk management for LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
In the Los Angeles Lakers’ last two games prior to the All-Star break, they faced the lowly Detroit Pistons at Crypto.com Arena on the front end of the back-to-back and the significantly better Utah Jazz in an always difficult away game in Salt Lake City.
In the Pistons game, both Lakers superstars Anthony Davis and LeBron James played. The result was an easy victory and then all eyes turned to the Jazz game with hopes of heading into the All-Star break strong and establishing the team’s best winning streak of the season.
However, post-match, LeBron was asked about his status for that Jazz game and he matter-of-factly stated that he wouldn’t be playing.
Regardless of the outcome where the Lakers played an excellent second half in Utah to win that game comfortably, wouldn’t it have made more sense for James to have played in that more difficult game rather than vs Detroit?
I took a closer look at that topic in the following video, including a key assumption that the question is built upon.
The reality is the Lakers’ have a medical process in place — especially with their superstars and especially with LeBron — so there will always be reasons behind their decision-making. It’s not a new strategy or a spur-of-the-moment decision by the Lakers either as this is the same approach they took with Anthony Davis on back-to-backs last season, even in a tight playoff push.
That doesn’t mean the team is immune from criticism, but at the least, I hope this provided some potential reasons into their process and reasons behind those decisions pertaining to injury risk management and when to hold or not hold players out.
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 partners with Quantum Performance in which he further 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.
