Magic Johnson blames the Lakers’ shortcomings in 2023-24 on … load management?
The Los Angeles Lakers’ 2023-24 season has concluded, losing in five games to the reigning champion Denver Nuggets, who have now won 12 of their last 13 meetings against one another.
The Lakers suffered two of their four losses this series at the hands of a Jamal Murray buzzer-beater, including a game-winning fallaway with less than four seconds left on the game clock.
With that, there are plenty of questions surrounding the team’s offseason, including the futures of both LeBron James and head coach Darvin Ham. Though roughly 12 hours after the final buzzer on their season, former Lakers great and executive Magic Johnson offered his input on why the season ended as soon as it did.
Johnson’s Twitter account has been a gold mine for great tweets in the past, and you could likely add this to the connection.
The Lakers had plenty go wrong this season–load management was not one of them. Each of their three-best players–LeBron James (71 games), Anthony Davis (76) and Austin Reaves (all 82)–appeared in at least 86 percent of the team’s regular season games this season. D’Angelo Russell played in 76 games; Rui Hachimura appeared in 68 games. How is load management the problem here?
Los Angeles was bitten by the injury bug to a few role players. In his first year with Los Angeles, Gabe Vincent missed all but 11 games due to a knee injury that forced him to have arthroscopic knee surgery in December; Jarred Vanderbilt missed 53 games due to a significant mid-foot sprain; Christian Wood missed the final 32 games of the regular season with knee surgery in March.
James dealt with a nagging ankle injury for the second half of the season, but he didn’t load manage it. Davis had the healthiest season of his career, despite multiple injury scares, from a games-played perspective. You could point to myriad things–such as the team’s roster construction to Darvin Ham‘s shortcomings as a head coach–but load management isn’t one of them.
NBA teams also can’t load manage players like they used to.
Several star players–including James and Davis–met the 65-game minimum this year after having a (recent) injury history. The 65-game minimum for awards certainly has its pitfalls, but the Lakers, again, weren’t an organization that had players mysteriously missed time … and we’ll possibly see that once the All-NBA and All-Defensive teams are announced.
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