While there was a chance that LeBron James could have returned this week, his official NBA return was put off for at least another week. However, there is some good injury news as well. The Los Angeles Lakers have officially announced that LeBron has been officially cleared to return to the basketball court as he prepares to return to the team.

LeBron James return update

The Los Angeles Lakers examined LeBron James on Thursday and had some encouraging news. The team reported that his groin injury is "progressing" and that LeBron is officially cleared to increase his on-court basketball movements.

That is huge news since James has done almost no basketball activities since he suffered his injury against the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day.

However, his return is likely one more week away. He will not travel with the Lakers as they play the Utah Jazz on Thursday night and he will also miss Sunday's game with the Cleveland Cavaliers and next Tuesday's game with the Chicago Bulls.

The Los Angeles Lakers will bring LeBron James back in on Wednesday next week for his next injury evaluation, and his increased on-court work has them hoping he can return for next Friday's game with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The best news is that some sources claimed this week that LeBron James had a sports hernia but those reports appear to be false.

This is great news for the Lakers, as they lost five of their first six games without LeBron James but are on a current two-game winning streak. After beating the Dallas Mavericks and Detroit Pistons, the Lakers actually extended their lead over the Jazz for the eighth spot in the Western Conference to two games.

LeBron still leads All-Star voting despite injury

The second returns from the NBA All-Star voting have arrived today as well. Despite his injury, LeBron James still has more votes than any other NBA superstar at any position. His 2,779,812 votes are over 500,000 more than Luka Doncic and almost 700,000 more than Stephen Curry.

In some incredible news, Kevin Durant has moved out of a starting spot with Paul George moving ahead of him in the votes by over 100,000 votes.

Two other members of the Los Angeles Lakers are also in the top 10 for NBA All-Star votes. Kyle Kuzma ranks eighth in the frontcourt voting with 584,842 votes for the West. Lonzo Ball ranks eighth in the voting for guards in the Western Conference with 529,164 votes.

At the moment, the starting lineup for West players includes LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Paul George, Stephen Curry and Derrick Rose.
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