Lakers star LeBron James played just 29 minutes in the team’s season-opening loss in Denver on Tuesday night, and that relatively modest workload will be a consistent theme for the 38-year-old going forward, head coach Darvin Ham told reporters, including ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
Ham said the plan for the start of the season is to keep James in the range of 28-to-30 minutes per game. He acknowledged that, with input from the team’s trainers and medical staffers, that number could fluctuate as the season progresses, but stressed that managing LeBron’s minutes will be a priority.
“It’s easy with him to get caught up in the emotion of the game and you tend to forget you want to play these long stretches, but in order for him to be as effective as possible, we have to be mindful of the minute output and how long his stretches are,” Ham said.
James said after the game that he’s confident he’ll still be able to make an impact in the minutes he does play and indicated that he’s on board with the team’s plan for him, adding that he wasn’t “surprised or upset” by his playing time on Tuesday.
“Listen, I mean, I always want to be on the floor. Especially when you got an opportunity to win a game or you feel like you can make an impact,” James said. “But this is the system in place and I’m going to follow it.”
LeBron averaged 37.2 minutes per game in 2021/22 and 35.5 MPG in ’22/23, but missed at least 26 games in both seasons due to injuries. It sounds like the goal this year will be to bring down his minutes per game while increasing the number of contests he’s available for.
While it’s certainly not the reason for the move, it’s worth noting that end-of-season awards like All-NBA now have a 65-game minimum requirement — if those rules had been in place in the past, James wouldn’t have been eligible to make an All-NBA team since 2019/20.
James has logged 38.1 minutes per night over the course of 1,422 career regular season games, never averaging fewer than 33.4 MPG in a season (2020/21).
Everyone is crapping in AD but his natural position is PF not C. LeBron should be playing SF. They should sign D Howard. He wants jokic so it’s a win win.
AD is functionally a Center. He does almost 70% of his offensive work in the paint and plays defense largely in drop coverage or at the rim, when he’s not set up as the roaming help guy.
LeBron is functionally a PF at this point in his career. He’s not guarding wings or backcourt guys except as the help guy or in doubles, and does most of his scoring inside the arc by using his length and strength. He’s also not really much of a shooter anymore, at least recently.
Playing the two of them in the frontcourt also lets the Lakers space the floor and make their stronger interior scoring easier.
Howard is older than Methuselah, so no. At least sign a guy like Noel or Dedmon who can still play with some athleticism. He’s just so slow anymore.
AD has always played PF until the beginning of last year
Yeah, that’s the position he’s played. Because at Center, he’s had Boogie, Dwight, Gasol, Asik, and others who can’t play the 4 or are better fits at the 5. But especially over the last several years, he’s been a Center on offense most of the time, and a Center on defense most of the time, based on what he does on the court. Same way Lauri Markkanen “played” Small Forward for the Cavs, but is a PF. Davis played so well as a Center last year, it’s not a surprise the Lakers want him to do it again. (Also, he played Center a bit more than half the time in 2018-2019, and 2015-2016, and about 3/4s the time in 21-22. He’s perfectly comfortable and capable at C).
Noel is a decent choice. Good one
Do a quick search on Twitter for “Dwight Howard”. You will find that he is deep in a court case, whereby he is accused of assault and other things with another man. He admitted to the “other things” in court documents. I would not expect to see Dwight in an NBA locker room again.
Yeah I saw that 5 minutes after I made this comment. So silver doesn’t mind that stuff, wife beating or anything just as long as he didn’t say anything bad on social media
Hahaha sign Howard? I’ll say no more…
And you thought OKC should keep Porter so what. I’ll say no more
Dude, no. He’s the best c in the league. As a pf, no way in hell is he even close. 29% lifetime from 3? No. If he doesn’t want to play c then trade him for giannis straight up.
Lakers will not be good this year. The key is to get out of the regular season which will be the hardest part. Always amazing how much better lakers can be in post season play.
It would appear all systems are out the window come playoffs.
Of course he’s on board with the system being implemented.. Win or lose it takes the onus off him.
1 game into the season and it is already clear that the Lakers are NOT any form of a title contender. The Lakers will be lucky to make the Playoffs.
I agree Anthony Davis is a PF. Can someone tell me again why the Lakers failed to re-sign Brook Lopez, who is a Southern California native, and protects the rim, and can shoot 3’s????
Money. Having just signed LeBron and (at that point) needing space to sign their young guys, the FO made the decision to let him walk.
Also, making that determination after 1 (one) game is hysterical. Or do I need to remind you that the Champion Nuggets got blown out 123-102 by the Jazz in their first game last season?
They havent won a home opener since 2016 and people like you still say that shii after the first game? Lol
Nobody should have to tell you
The Lakers were maxed out at the MLE (12 mill)
Brook got 24 AAV
Cmon man, these are lay up drills here!
Kind of a sneaky way to get around the rule of sitting out entire games.
Yeah, I get it he’s getting up there in age. Maybe he shouldn’t train so hard in the off-season, and he’d have a little more in the tank when it counts.
Goes for plenty of other players in multiple sports, not just him.
Keeping him on a game-by-game limit is silly. Give him a big workload during close games, take him out early in blowouts. And no, I don’t mean waiting until 4 mins left down by 15 like most head coaches seemingly do. If you’re down by 16 with 8 to go, just give it up at that point. You’ll probably win one of those games a season versus needing to have him in a lot more close games. Plus, in the best-case scenario you can always bring him back late in the 4th if the team goes on a big run.
None of that is ultimately going to happen, of course. Old habits will die hard.
Understandable. With all the traveling LeBron has done over the course of his career, weariness was bound to catch up with him sooner or later.