LeBron James will turn 39 on December 30. In less than a month it will begin twenty-first season in the NBA. And yet, “He is preparing as if he were a rookie”as he says Rob Pelinka, vice president of basketball operations and general manager of the Lakers. In the history of the League, there has never been such a veteran player who performed at such a high level.
“He’s been working out at 6:00. He’s probably been in our building as much as any player this offseason.”. She’s been in the weight room as much as anyone. On any team LeBron has played on, his work has set the tone.”assures the leader of the Los Angeles franchise about the work of his star, who He continues to spend more than a million dollars on taking care of his physique.
Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka and coach Darvin Ham talk on the bench.
Last season, James averaged 35.5 minutes per game to play 28.9 points on 50% shooting, 8.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists on average. Beastly figures for his age and despite the passage of time, he is beginning to give him some problems: a tear in the tendon in his right foot made him miss 27 games. In the last five seasons he has missed 111 games due to injury, while in the previous 15 he had missed 71..
Better surrounded
The Lakers’ plan for the course that will start in a few weeks It’s not about reducing LeBron’s minutes but about taking advantage of how well surrounded he seems to be.. “He does a great job taking care of himself. The team around him now, the pieces we have, those guys are going to step up and do a lot of heavy lifting right from the start.”reveals the coach Darwin Ham.
“We have to partner with LeBron to help him get to the end of the season healthy, because that is its goal. And that’s why I think adding the depth that we have, the versatility, the shooting, all those things will help us achieve it,” Pelinka believes.
Keep the core hard
The Lakers have managed to maintain the hard core of the team this summer by securing contract extensions with Anthony Davis, Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura y Jarred Vanderbilt. Furthermore, they have added Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Jaxson Hayes, Cam Reddish and they finished off the squad with the hiring of Christian Wood. Newbies have joined them Jalen Hood-Schifino y Maxwell Lewis.
Austin Reaves celebrates a basket in a game last season.
The new NBA rules on resting stars They will be a factor to take into account in LeBron’s season. The Lakers will calculate it long term, “month by month, in different sections of the calendar,” said Ham, who will try to find opportunities for the veteran star to lighten his load. “We have talked about eliminate consecutive matches. It’s something we would support, but we don’t know if we could remove them all,” Pelinka doubts.
2023-09-29 10:30:12
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