LeBron James is soon to be 33 years old and is currently in the 15th season of his NBA career, a career which has included 12 playoff appearances and seven NBA Finals appearances. That is a lot of miles on that metaphorical odometer.
In spite of this, he is currently leading the NBA in minutes per game at 38.1.
This fact was refereed to by arch nemesis/business partner/manhood attacker/sometimes friend? Draymond Green when he said that Cleveland fans shouldn’t be too concerned about their slow start, but more so about LeBron’s minutes this season in a Q & A with Sam Amick of USA Today.
LeBron agrees… (via Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com)
“Draymond’s right,” James told cleveland.com, after Green’s comments were relayed to him. “We want to get those minutes down for sure. But as of right now, we’ve had two point guards out and we’ve had some different lineup changes, so, I’ve had to play more minutes than I would like, and more minutes than my teammates would like me to have.”
“The caliber of players that we have, you always would like to, you know, get a couple more minutes here, couple more minutes there, and be a lot fresher down the stretch,” James said. “Draymond’s right, he’s right on point with it. But there’s going to be games where I have to play 40. There’s going to be games where I can play 32.
“Hopefully it all evens out, especially when IT comes back, D Rose comes back, Tristan comes back, we get more firepower.”
Waiting on Derrick Rose to be healthy and dependable is a fool’s game, but hopefully the reports that the Cavaliers think Isaiah Thomas could be back in about a month are true because his return is the thing that would allow LeBron James to play less minutes and still have a chance to win games.
That is if the competitive spirit in LeBron will allow such a thing especially if they are still stuck in close games or battling uphill on many nights.
LeBron James is not 100% human (pretty sure it is a scientific fact by now) but his workload will start catching up with him at some point and you are toast if you have an exhausted and worn LeBron James come April.
It is time for King James to sit on his throne, I mean the bench, more.
