LeBron James has had his body under scrutiny before. He missed the Lakers’ opening 14 games with sciatica affecting his lower back and right leg, a stretch that put an asterisk on his age for the first time in a career built on defying it.
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He returned, played through back-to-backs on a game-by-game basis, and still logged 60 games at 41 years old. Now, settling into a new city and a new jersey, James is carrying the same two issues into Year 24, and this time the details are coming from inside his own training camp.
According to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, who spent time embedded with the Sixers during James’ first camp in Philadelphia, two specific ailments are shaping how the team manages him on a daily basis.
“There is special attention paid to his left foot, which has chronic arthritis, sources told ESPN, and his lower back, which caused him to miss the first month of last season because of sciatica,” McMenamin reported.
Neither issue is new. But having them confirmed and named publicly as James begins a fresh chapter adds weight to questions about how much the Sixers can lean on him over 82 games.
McMenamin’s reporting detailed what managing those conditions actually looks like day to day. James’ routine at the Sixers’ facility starts around 7:45 a.m., well before team practice, when he meets longtime trainer Mike Mancias for stretching, activation work and treatment modalities aimed at stabilizing his joints and back before he ever touches a basketball.
It’s a routine that’s been building for years, but one that now carries more urgency given the stakes of his first season in Philadelphia.
Why Philadelphia Is Planning Around James’ Health From Day One
The Sixers didn’t sign James without accounting for this. Head coach Nick Nurse already indicated plans to share the offensive workload rather than build the system entirely around James creating every possession, a choice that doubles as load management.
LeBron James, for his part, has said he intends to adjust his own style of play this season, leaning more on efficiency and positioning rather than the downhill, body-punishing drives that defined earlier chapters of his career.
The stakes are straightforward. Philadelphia built a roster around Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown and James specifically to contend now, and a championship-or-bust season puts real pressure on keeping its oldest star available in the spring rather than just the fall.
Embiid himself carries a long injury history, meaning the Sixers can’t simply plan around one fragile star while assuming the other stays healthy.
None of this is James hiding an injury or making excuses in advance. It’s the opposite: a level of transparency about chronic arthritis and recurring sciatica that comes from a team trying to get ahead of a problem rather than react to it mid-season, the way the Lakers had to a year ago.
Whether that planning holds up will say as much about Philadelphia’s title chances as anything that happens on the court.