No one in the organization will ever admit it, but now that LeBron has finally delivered a championship to Cleveland, there’s probably a huge sigh of relief surrounding the Cavaliers. That was a hurdle that many feared he’d never clear. Now that he has, will everyone come out next season feeling extra relaxed, or will they still be as hungry?
LeBron is entering his 14th NBA season, and is no spring chicken. He’s still plenty effective, but has a ton of NBA miles on him. To that end, Tyronn Lue plans on limiting LeBron’s minutes. Every team LeBron is on from now until the end of his career has the sole objective of winning a championship and the team will be built for the playoffs, so we’ll see how much this truly matters.
“My thing is just making sure guys are healthy, continue to limit LeBron’s minutes, and he was at an all-time low last year,” Lue said. “Watch Kyrie [Irving’s] minutes because we know we’re playing for something big. We know when we get to the playoffs it’s going to require a lot of minutes, so with those guys and with Kevin [Love], just have to watch guys getting to the red zone.
James played a career-low 35.6 minutes per game last season, upping that workload in the playoffs to 39.1 minutes per game as he made his sixth straight trip to the Finals en route to winning the championship. This came a year after he took a two-week sabbatical in the middle of the regular season to rest his body and came back looking noticeably refreshed.
H/T: ESPN
