Johnson: Lakers To Monitor James’ Minutes To Avoid Overuse

The Lakers will continue to monitor LeBron James‘ minutes keep him fresh and avoid overuse, team president Magic Johnson said to SiriusXM NBA Radio (via ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk).

“We are trying to make sure that we watch his minutes but also that we don’t run everything through him because now it is Cleveland all over again and we don’t want that,” Johnson said. “We want to get up and down.”

Through 22 games this season, the 33-year-old James has averaged 34.5 minutes per game for Los Angeles. In 2017/18, James averaged 36.9 minutes for the Cavaliers as he played in a career-high 82 regular season games, plus an additional 22 postseason contests. As Youngmisuk writes, the Lakers – whose roster already featured several promising youngsters – signed a handful of veteran play-makers this offseason in an effort decrease a reliance on James.

The four-time MVP, averaging 28.1 PPG, 7.8 RPG and 6.6 APG, himself addressed finding the right balance between taking over games and deferring to his teammates, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin writes.

“That’s the challenge of things I’ve been kind of battling with since the season started,” James said after a recent win over the Pacers. “How much do I defer and allow some of our young guys to kind of try to figure it out, and how much do I try to take over games? I think tonight was one of those instances where they looked at me and they wanted me to close the game.”

At 13-9, the Lakers are currently the sixth seed in the Western Conference.

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