JJ Redick, Lakers reconsidering LeBron James playing a full 82-game slate

JJ Redick, Lakers reconsidering LeBron James playing a full 82-game slate

Before the season, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James‘ was very keen about playing all 82 games. Though amid one of the worst shooting stretches of his career, head coach JJ Redick is reconsidering James’ plan when it may not be in the 39-year-old’s best interest.

“I don’t know that’s in the best interest of him and us if he does that, but if he’s feeling well and feeling good, then he should play,” Redick said recently, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “But we obviously want to … manage that as best we can.”

Before Wednesday’s 29-point, eight-assist performance against the Miami Heat, James was averaging 19.4 points on just 43.8 percent shooting, including 21.8 percent from 3-point range and 68.4 percent from the free-throw line. To cap off a five-game-in-seven-night stretch Monday on the road against Minnesota, James scored 10 points on just 4-of-16 shooting and 0-for-4 from 3-point range.

The Lakers still have the 10th-best adjusted offensive rating in the sport, though this is the first year where James has been a NET negative on the floor. We’re only 22 games into the season, but the sample size continues to grow. They have a 111.3 offensive rating (32nd percentile) when he’s on the floor in non-garbage-time situations, according to Cleaning The Glass. To make matters worse, believe it not, the Lakers are north of 13 points per 100 possessions worse on the floor versus when he’s not.

That’s an issue. I expect water to reach its level eventually, but it may come at the expense of Los Angeles load managing James on certain nights to keep him fresh–even though that’s sacrilegious in some people’s eyes. I’m not a load management fan, but if the Lakers have postseason aspirations, a burnt-out James isn’t the solution.

We’ve chronicled how bad the Lakers have been defensively, and it didn’t get better Wednesday despite James being the only positive offensively. Who knows whether that tide will turn in the near future, but the margin of error for James, Anthony Davis and the rest of the supporting cast thins if it doesn’t.

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