It would be a good thing for the Los Angeles Lakers to reduce the amount of time LeBron James is on the court.
The four-time MVP played 29 minutes and 01 seconds in Tuesday’s 119-107 loss to the Denver Nuggets, the fewest minutes of any player in the Lakers’ starting lineup. After the game, head coach Darwin Hamm said that was intentional.
“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 time, but in order for him to be as efficient as possible we have to pay attention to the output per minute, how long his stretches are,” he told reporters.
James, for his part, said he agrees with the approach.
“Listen, I mean, I’ve always wanted to be on the field,” he said. “Especially when you have a chance to win a game or you feel like you can make an impact. But that’s the system that’s in place and I’m going to follow it.”
It might be difficult for Ham to resist the urge to abandon the plan and lean heavily on James to help overturn a 14-point deficit after the first quarter. The 38-year-old performed well, scoring 21 points on 10-of-16 shooting, plus eight rebounds, five assists and one steal. Los Angeles is also +7 when he’s on the floor.
Managing LeBron’s workload is a necessary step for the Lakers to achieve their lofty aspirations; whether Ham can follow through is another matter, because we’ve been down this road before.
At least as far back as the 2015-16 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers have wanted to use James slightly less. He averaged a career-low 35.6 minutes per game, but he led the NBA in minutes each of the next two years.
During LeBron’s first year with the Lakers, then-President of Basketball Operations Magic Johnson said they were “trying to make sure we were paying attention to his minutes, but we weren’t going to turn everything over to him because now Cleveland has another We don’t want to do that all over again.”
According to “Basketball Reference”, James averaged 35.2 minutes per game in the Purple and Gold Army, and his usage rate in Los Angeles was 32.1%, slightly higher than his career average (31.6).
Sooner or later, this needs to actually happen, and there’s no better time than now.
James’ demise has been laid bare over the past few seasons. Those minor injuries have combined to miss 111 games since signing with the Lakers. He also failed to make the back-to-backs that fans expected him to do in Los Angeles’ two postseason games following their championship run from 2019-29.
During the 2021-2023 playoffs, the 6-foot-9 forward averaged 24.2 points, 9.1 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game while shooting 49.1% from the field and 29.9% from beyond the arc. . For almost every other player, that’s an excellent performance; in James’ case, it’s below par.
By the time the Lakers were eliminated in the Western Conference Finals, James was physically and emotionally exhausted and conflicted about whether to play 21 more years in the NBA.
No one is hitting the panic button, but Tuesday’s loss was a reminder of Los Angeles’ standing in the Western Conference during the regular season. This isn’t quite at the level of the Nuggets, and finishing in the top four is no guarantee.
If James regains his extraordinary talents, the playoffs may be a different story, as he remains a player with few rivals in the NBA. Reducing his playing time during the regular season, even at the cost of a win here and there, is a strategy to ensure that goal is achieved.