The 26-year-old Austin Reaves has been on a tear to open the season. He made one thing very clear: once LeBron comes back, the Lakers still expect LeBron wine glass, genius brain, and all.

Let’s break down what Reaves actually said, where LeBron’s body is at, and what this return really means for a 10–4 Lakers team that’s somehow thriving without its 40-year-old cheat code.

LeBron hasn’t played a single minute in the 2025–26 season after sciatic nerve irritation on his right side flared up during the offseason. Sciatica isn’t the kind of thing you “tough out” at 40. It’s nerve pain that shoots from the lower back down the leg and can wreck explosiveness if you rush it.

The Lakers shut him down for the entire preseason and the first chunk of the regular season. JJ Redick kept repeating the same line: no shortcuts, no rushing him back, everything under medical supervision. Early estimates of a 3–4 week absence quietly came and went. Instead of chasing dates, the staff focused on boxes:

• No nerve pain at rest
  
• No flare-ups during movement
  
• Full-speed, full-contact work with no setbacks
  

Only after that would they even think about green-lighting a return.

Here’s where it got weird: LeBron James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, was officially assigned to the South Bay Lakers.

While the main squad went on a road trip, LeBron stayed back in El Segundo and used the G League group as his personal lab. Multiple practices. Live scrimmages. Controlled contact. That’s where he logged his first 5-on-5 of the season, around a dozen live possessions at full speed.

By all accounts, he passed every test. Reporters were told he “looked great and felt great,” moved well, and showed no obvious limitations from the sciatic issue. Redick backed it up, saying LeBron was “moving well” and ticking off the final benchmarks the medical staff needed.

Then came the line every Lakers fan wanted to see:

LeBron has been reassigned back to the Lakers and will be a full participant in practice on Monday.

That’s the clearest sign yet. Once you’re back in full practice with the main group, you’re not “weeks away” anymore. You’re circling a specific game.

Right now, that game is Nov. 18 vs. the Utah Jazz at home, with Nov. 25 vs. the Clippers as the backup plan if they want one more week of ramp-up.

While all this rehab was going on, the Lakers weren’t struggling. They were 10–4, sitting comfortably in the West. Luka Dončić was in full supernova mode. Reaves himself was putting up video-game numbers. Role guys were hitting. The team could easily have used LeBron’s absence as a built-in excuse.

Reaves went the other way.

Talking to reporters, he made it sound like LeBron never really left, just switched locations.

He joked that you already know how LeBron is wired: He’s at home, probably with a glass of wine, watching every possession and “analyzing everything to a T,” figuring out “exactly what he can do to help the team be successful.”

That’s not just a cute image. It’s Reaves basically saying: don’t be fooled by the DNPs, LeBron has been game-planning this whole time.

Then Reaves raised the bar even higher:

• “It’s LeBron… he’s a winner at the end of the day.”
  
• “He’s won his whole career.”
  
• And most importantly, he expects LeBron to come in and “be one of the best players” on the floor right away.
  

No easing him in mentally. No, “we just hope he can give us something.” Reaves publicly set the standard at the All-NBA level from Day 1.

That’s a teammate sending a message in two directions:

• To LeBron: We still see you as that guy.
• To everyone else: Don’t get comfortable. The King is coming back and the bar is going up, not down.

What LeBron changes for this version of the Lakers

The scary part for the rest of the West? The Lakers have already built a functional identity without LeBron.

• Luka Doncic is putting up Crazy numbers as the primary engine.
  
• Reaves is handling secondary playmaking and hunting mismatches.
  
• The bigs are eating off their gravity.
  
• Young guys (including Bronny) have had real reps instead of garbage time.
  

They’ve basically spent a month learning how to win without their safety net. Now you plug LeBron back into that.

He instantly:

• Lowers everyone’s difficulty setting easier shots, simpler reads.
  
• stabilizes games when things get chaotic.
  
• adds another late-clock problem-solver.
  
• raises the IQ floor on both ends.
  

From a rotations standpoint, Redick can get creative:

• Stagger LeBron and Luka so one elite playmaker is always on the floor.
  
• Let Reaves slide into more of a hunter/closer role instead of carrying full-time table-setting duties.
  
• Use LeBron to organize second-unit lineups that have been a little wild at times.
  

There will be an adjustment period, sure. Timing, spacing, rhythm, all of that needs reps. But this isn’t some rusty vet trying to remember how to play. This is a guy who’s been obsessively watching his own team from the outside and lining up exactly where he fits.

Austin Reaves didn’t tiptoe around it. He didn’t give the usual “we just want him healthy and whatever he gives us is a bonus” line. He said, in so many words: we expect LeBron James to walk back in, at 40, after a nerve injury, and immediately look like one of the best players on the court. And honestly? That’s probably exactly how LeBron wants it.

The Lakers survived without him. They might even have grown because of it. But their ceiling still lives wherever LeBron’s body lets him go. Now the sciatica is quiet, the G League tune-up is done, the practice restriction is gone, and the wine-fueled film sessions are about to move back onto the Crypto.com Arena floor.

The countdown isn’t just about when LeBron plays again. It’s about how fast he can turn a good start into something the rest of the West actually fears.