Lakers plan to reduce LeBron James’ workload

lakers Star LeBron James The team played just 29 minutes in Denver’s season opener on Tuesday night, and a relatively modest workload will be a consistent theme for the 38-year-old head coach going forward. Darwin Ham told reporters, including ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.

Hamm said the plan at the beginning of the season was to keep James averaging between 28 and 30 minutes per game. He acknowledged that number could fluctuate as the season progresses based on input from the team’s trainers and medical staff, but stressed that managing LeBron’s minutes will be a top priority.

“It’s easy for him to get caught up in the emotion of a game and you tend to forget you want to play for such a long period of time, but in order for him to be as efficient as possible we have to pay attention to the output per minute,” he said. “ Ham said.

James said after the game that he believed he could still make an impact in his playing time and said he agreed with the team’s plan for him, adding that he was not “surprised or upset” by his performance. Game time Tuesday.

“Look, I mean, I always want to be out there. Especially when you have a chance to win a game or you feel like you can make an impact,”

James said. “But that’s the system in place and I’m going to follow it.”

LeBron averaged 37.2 minutes per game in the 2021/22 season and 35.5 minutes per game in the 2022/23 season, but missed at least 26 games due to injury in both seasons. It sounds like the goal this year is to reduce his minutes per game while increasing the number of games he can play in.

While that’s certainly not the reason for the move, it’s worth noting that end-of-season awards like All-NBA Team now have a 65-game minimum requirement – if these rules had been implemented in the past, James wouldn’t have had the chance to win since 2019/20 Be eligible for selection to the NBA All-NBA Team starting from the season.

In 1,422 career regular season games, James has played 38.1 minutes per night and has never averaged less than 33.4 MPG in a single season (2020/21).