LeBron James makes long-awaited return, is Lakers' leading scorer in loss to the Bulls

"The King" has made his return.

LeBron James was the Los Angeles Lakers' leading scorer with 19 points off the bench in their 118-108 home loss to the Chicago Bulls on Sunday. Troy Brown Jr. and Malik Beasley added 18 points each as Los Angeles saw its three-game winning streak end. For the Bulls, Zach Lavine dominated with 32 points. DeMar DeRozan contributed a double-double with 17 points and 10 assists.

James entered the game with 6:32 left in the first quarter. He replaced starting guard Austin Reaves and, staying true to tradition, threw chalk in the air prior to taking the court, much to the crowd's delight.

This is only the second time in James' 20-year career he's come off the bench. The only other time was in 2007 when he was with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

He has not played since Feb. 26 against the Dallas Mavericks due to a lingering injury to his right foot tendon. He missed 13 games as the Lakers try to make a playoff push.

Ahead of his return, the 19-time All-Star suited up and participated in shootaround at Crypto.com Arena. The team officially made him available to play after he was upgraded to questionable earlier in the day. On Saturday, his injury status was upgraded from out to doubtful.

The team posted a video on Twitter of James shooting in warmups with the caption, "King Day."

Shortly after that, the team made another post making James' availability "officially official."

On Thursday, the new all-time NBA scoring leader gave fans an update on his status via Twitter, saying that he had no clear timetable for return, but that he was "working around the clock, every day(3X a day) to give myself to best chance of coming back full strength whenever that is."

After the loss, the Lakers are ninth in the Western Conference with a 37-38 record.

They travel east for a rematch against the Bulls on Wednesday. After missing the playoffs last year, the team has seven games left in the regular season to return to lock in a berth to the postseason.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LeBron James returns to Lakers after 13-game absence with foot injury