The Los Angeles Lakers have returned about $4.6 million obtained from a US government program meant to help small businesses recover from the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, ESPN reported Monday. The NBA club, valued by Forbes magazine at $4.4 billion, told the sports television network in a statement they returned the money after learning the $349 billion in the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program had been exhausted within two weeks, with hundreds of thousands of small businesses unable to get access. "The Lakers qualified for and received a loan under the Payroll Protection Program," ESPN reported the Lakers said in a statement.