{"id":487865,"date":"2026-01-02T20:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/487865\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T20:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:32:14","slug":"is-lebron-james-playing-tonight-vs-grizzlies-final-status-for-lakers-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/487865\/","title":{"rendered":"Is LeBron James playing tonight vs. Grizzlies? Final status for Lakers star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\/news\/lebron-james-playing-tonight-vs-grizzlies-final-status-lakers-star\/d7a36a3aa6d2d82be2422a68?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Is LeBron James playing tonight vs. Grizzlies? Final status for Lakers star;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Is LeBron James playing tonight vs. Grizzlies? Final status for Lakers star <\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Sporting News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Preferred Source by clicking here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Los Angeles Lakers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> lost their last game of 2025 to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/detroit-pistons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Detroit Pistons;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Detroit Pistons<\/a>. They\u2019ll look to respond by winning their first game of 2026 against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/memphis-grizzlies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Memphis Grizzlies;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>It will be the second game of the season between Los Angeles and Memphis, as the Lakers bested the Grizzlies, 117-112, in an NBA Cup group stage game back on Halloween.<\/p>\n<p>LeBron James will play against Grizzlies on Friday night<\/p>\n<p>Lakers star forward LeBron James didn\u2019t play in that game as he was sidelined with sciatica, but the story will be different this time around.<\/p>\n<p>Though James missed the first matchup with Memphis, he won\u2019t miss the second one. James isn\u2019t listed on the <a href=\"https:\/\/ak-static.cms.nba.com\/referee\/injury\/Injury-Report_2026-01-02_01_15PM.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:official injury report;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">official injury report<\/a> for the contest, indicating that he\u2019ll be available to be out on the floor with his teammates.<\/p>\n<p>On the season, James has appeared in 15 games for the Lakers and posted averages of 20.3 points, 6.5 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 1 steal in 32.9 minutes of action per performance. Not bad for a guy who just turned 41 years old.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>But, while James will be available for the game, the Lakers will still be without a few key contributors. Austin Reaves, Gabe Vincent,\u00a0Rui Hachimura and\u00a0Adou Thiero have all been ruled out of the game due to various ailments.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers enter the matchup with Memphis sitting fifth in the Western Conference standings with a record of 20-11, while the Grizzlies are ninth at 15-18.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of what happens in the game on Friday night, the Lakers won\u2019t have to wait long for another crack at the Grizzlies, as the two teams are also set to meet again on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is LeBron James playing tonight vs. Grizzlies? Final status for Lakers star originally appeared on The Sporting News.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":487866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[17377,17378,3129,67077,3363,224,3141,3135,1260,25927,62,187502,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-487865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-adou-thiero","9":"tag-austin-reaves","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-gabe-vincent","12":"tag-lebron-james","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-rui-hachimura","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-the-grizzlies","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115827411761608895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}