Lakers News: LeBron James Could Log Career Low In This Stat, But That's A Good Thing!
38-year-old All-Star Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, on the cusp of his 21st NBA season (and his sixth with LA), has already achieved pretty much everything anyone could have reasonable expected in his storied career. He's a four-time NBA champion, Finals MVP and league MVP, a 19-time All-Star and All-NBA honoree, a six-time All-Defensive Team honoree, and the all-time leader in scoring.
He's also played 65,747 career minutes (in combined playoff and regular season appearances), second behind fellow Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (66,297).
Luckily, at least Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report is convinced that Los Angeles will make a concerted effort to ensure that the 6'8" superstar takes his sweet time in surpassing those Hall of Famers this season when it comes to that particular record.
"Credit to the Lakers' depth, but James will play a career-low in minutes this season. L.A. had a strong summer, continuing a trend dating back to before the 2022-23 trade deadline," Pincus writes. "The Lakers have enough offensive and defensive firepower to let James pace himself. Last year, he averaged 35.5 minutes a night (55 games), but he'll dip to as low as 31 or 32, which would be well below his career-low in 2020-21 (33.4)."
James added 2,573 combined minutes of regular season and playoff mileage to his odometer across those 55 regular season and 16 playoff contests last season (the play-in game isn't even counted on his Basketball-Reference page, nor did Abdul-Jabbar need to ever play one, so we're omitting it here). Assuming he appears in a similar tally of regular season and playoffs bouts (which feels likely, given his ever-accruing injuries), but plays 31.5 minutes per, that would equate to 2,236.5 minutes. That sum would mean he's probably going to topple yet insane Abdul-Jabbar record.
Los Angeles added a variety of veteran frontcourt players and ball handlers this offseason (specifically point guard Gabe Vincent, forwards Taurean Prince and Cam Reddish, plus big men Christian Wood and Jaxson Hayes), bolstering the club's depth while also ostensibly helping ensure it could survive some extended run without James, both during a game in general and during the days or weeks where he will perhaps inevitably be sidelined with an injury.
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