LeBron James enters Thursday just 10 minutes from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most total minutes played in regular season NBA history after having passed him in total minutes (playoffs included) last year. He’s likely to set the regular season record against the Kings. James discussed the achievement with The Athletic’s Jovan Buha and Sam Amick.
“I just think it’s just a commitment to the craft and to the passion and love I have for the game,” James said. “I don’t take much time in the offseason. A little bit more time now, I didn’t take much time in the offseason, no matter if I was making the 10 Finals appearances back to back and just always trying to keep my body in tip-top shape.
“And I’ve been able to, like I said, play a lot of minutes and for the most part of my career be injury-free and be available. I don’t want to say injury-free. We all have our injuries in this league and in this sport. But to be available for the majority to my teammates, to the franchises, the three franchises I play for, is something I took very seriously.”
James has been rehabbing an injury over the past couple weeks, missing a pair of games last week. According to Buha and Amick, he’s open to resting down the line if it makes sense in the schedule.
“I’m just not a guy that likes to sit games, if I’m somewhat healthy,” James said. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just, it’s never been my thing. … If there’s an opportunity where it could benefit my body and benefit my play long-term for the better of the team, then I’m always open to having that conversation. So we’ll see what happens.”
We have more from the Pacific Division:
- As a result of Kawhi Leonard‘s knee injury and Paul George‘s free agency departure, James Harden has been the only member of the Clippers‘ former big three still standing this season and has continued to keep the team competitive by providing strong leadership and playing big minutes, Janis Carr of The Orange County Register writes. Harden is averaging 22.1 points, 6.5 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game while shooting 35.3% from beyond the arc. The Clippers entered Thursday at 15-12. “If he has a bad shooting night, the next night he’s probably going to come back and play well,” head coach Tyronn Lue said. “That’s what good players do. They bounce back. We’ve asked him to do a lot. He’s carried a load offensively, making the right passes, reads and also scoring the basketball. And at 35 years old, that can get tiring. So, we are asking a lot of him.“
- Current San Diego Clippers guard Elijah Harkless is drawing NBA interest ahead of the G League Showcase, SNY’s Ian Begley reports (via Twitter). Harkless is averaging 15.4 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.6 steals per contest for L.A.’s G League club. He went undrafted in 2023 out of UNLV and spent back-to-back offseasons on a training camp deal with the Clippers.
- The Kings have won three of their last four games and four of their past six, but they dropped some winnable games earlier in the season and are at an uneven 13-14, good for 12th in the Western Conference. Head coach Mike Brown challenged star De’Aaron Fox to help the team continue to lock in and focus on the details, according to FOX 40 Sacramento’s Sean Cunningham (Twitter link). “Fox has to step up,” Brown said. “He’s a great player, on the verge of being a superstar…you have a lot of responsibility if you’re that guy, and he’s that guy. And he can’t be a part of not being locked in and he damn sure can’t be a part of letting it go if we’re not [locked in] as a team.“
- Dennis Schröder appeared in his first game as a member of the Warriors, starting on Thursday after being traded by the Nets. As observed by ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk (Twitter link), Jonathan Kuminga moved to the bench after having started each of Golden State’s past six games.
6 rings, 6 MVPs, and Bron fans act like Bron is better than Kareem, what a joke.
Look at Kareems age 40 and age 41 seasons: starter on Finals team (1 win 1 loss). Now look at what Bron’s age 40 season looked like…yikes…
I’m not a LeBron fan at all, but he’s still impressive at 40.
No doubt, he’s for sure top 10 all-time, but if you follow basketball online you will find the most obnoxious type of poster is the “Lebron is #1 GOAT and you cant change my mind” type, which are everywhere.
I think Gsw fans have far blown by the Lbj Stan’s as most obnoxious
You can give yourself credit there tho for helping
What is a LBj Stan’s? I hardly doubt that Davey J is a Warriors fan, if that is what you mean. He sounds more like a mental patient.
@ Davey J. The getting in first and defecting from a loss like that….humorous.
The way that coach Kerr approaches the upcoming game against Minnesota may well define the season. The Warriors beat the Wolves 11 days ago with Draymond coming off the bench, putting Kuminga on Randle, and GP2 on Edwards. It was the last game where GSW wasn’t outcoached.
If Kerr chooses to do against Minnesota as he did tonight against Memphis (which was going small and using a 13 man rotation), reverting from what worked 12 days ago, and if GSW loses badly against Minnesota, then the criticisms in the national media tonight will be amplfied: Kerr can’t adapt to the declining games of Steph and Draymond.
Defensively, Dennis Schroder excels at guarding other PG’s, especially quick ones, at the point of attack. But Dennis weighs only 170 lbs (30 pounds less than DeAnthony Melton). Playing him with Steph means one of them has to guard 225 lb SG’s like Desmond Bane and Ant Edwards. Against Minnesota, GSW can’t hide 2 undersized guards against a giant lineup of Alexander-Walker, Ant, McDaniels, Randle and Gobert.
Memphis is as big and long as Minnesota. Tonight, even in the first half, Kerr continually put Steph in 3 guard lineups – with Waters, Buddy, Schroeder and Podz. IIRC, we ran no ball screens or pick and rolls, comtrary to indications from Kerr earlier this week, so the offense is not diversifying, even as the league’s worst defense gives up 143 and 144 points in consecutive games.
Here’s hoping Kerr has a revelation soon like he did around Jan 25 of last season. It’s not Christmas yet, and we’re in 10th place.
You can’t blame Kerr entirely. That was some of the worst-played basketball I’ve ever seen. The Wizards haven’t had a game that bad this season. The Pistons didn’t have a game that bad last year. When everyone but Podz, Kyle Anderson, and Wiggins shat the bed, it doesn’t really matter how well or how poorly Kerr coached. Steph had probably the worst game of his career. Draymond had four turnovers, four fouls, one steal, and nothing else. -41 and -42 respectively.
That game is on the players, almost entirely. Playing that badly would be grounds for a group benching if they had the leeway.
EonADS, the coach has lost the confidence of the players. It’s that simple. That happens to all leaders when the plan continually changes in the face of adversity. The result is shell-shock and low morale, and nobody is hiding it.
GSW fans and local media may choose to ignore seeing veteran players not running back on defense in the first half, but the rest of the world doesn’t.
Lsten to the post-game: every player (and coach) was talking about how much “work” has yet to be done “to figure things out”. But we’re 1/3 of the way through the season, and we’ve already tried multiple themes.
This team can’t contend playing a 13 man-rotation. Nor can we play tiny lineups against big teams. If that continues, so does this free-fall.
I had to shut off the game volume last night. It was Fritz making p excuses all night long. Getting tired of him being the biggest homer announcer in the NBA. Once warriors are losing by a dozen he goes into his excuses of the opposing team is playing so well lately is why the warriors are losing. He is afraid to call out players for not guarding and bad rotations. Its always excuse after excuse.
It’s not that simple. Players should be responsible for their own screw-ups, and there’s absolutely no way you can pin a 51-point loss with your best players on both ends being *outright liabilities* on anything other than the players not doing their jobs.
Did Kerr help? No, probably not. But he should not be the difference between a close game and one of the worst blowouts in team history.
It looked like they went out and partied the night before. Curry was not moving like he usually do so is he hurt or age catching up to him? Kerr’s problem is he loves the small lineup way too much and now that the league adjusted and got bigger he has not.
Bigs take longer to develop. Teams don’t want to give up developed bigs.
EonADS, I disagree that “it can’t be that simple”. This isn’t about one game. The performance of all professionals, including proven winners, degrades over extended periods of frustration and pessimism.
When the leaders of your team are plainly not trying, listen to them. Steph and Draymond didnt dodge responsibility post-game, but they did say AGAIN that until we have a stability, this doesn’t end.
You get stability when players play better.
I have said this before. But, you choose to ignore it. It is not that complicated. The Warriors have only two players with outside shots, Curry and Heild. When teams see that, they sag off of the other players and double Curry and Heild. That’s why the Warriors are last in pick-n-rolls in the NBA. Coming into the season, Kerr said that more players had to shoot the 3. Hell, even Looney was working on his outside shot.
You just can’t drop a player into a new team and expect success after just two practices. It doesn’t work that way. They all have to adjust to each other. You interrupt the flow of things; problems happen.
Watters was supposed to be the other 3 pt shooter but lately looks like Payton out there. Too many offensive plays ran through Curry while the others are afraid to shoot. Curry is double teamed every game now so Kerr needs to run plays using Curry as the decoy as I been say for a long time.
The b problem with Kerr this season is the warriors are not adjusting but their opponents are adjusting. The double teaming the ball handler worked the first 10 games but now teams know just pass the ball around to a open 3 pt shooter. They need to stop double teaming the opponent’s best player. On offense there is too many holes. Payton is not being guarded because opposing teams know he can’t shoot the 3. So they can double team the better offensive players. Hieild has been missing easy shots .
arc89, That’s a good summary. Uncontested 3 pointers are killing us.
The defensive problems around double-teaming and opponent 3pt % are rooted in small-ball.
Rather than use our bigs, we use an undersized front-line that requires constant help from our guards and wings. An unofficial count of last night showed we gave up 41 UNCONTESTED 3 POINT ATTEMPTS, which would be a record.
It’s not just the double-teaming, it’s that many of our guards and wings, other than JK and Wiggins, are too small to contest. Steph, Payton, and Schroeder can be close but their too short to bother Bane, Morant, Aldana, etc.
There is problem with your assessment. In to many games, the Warriors have become turnover prone. Against Houston, the Warriors turned the ball over 20 times and it led to 30 Rockets points. They have done that in a bunch of games, and all have been loses. You can’t get, or go far, in the playoffs if you keep doing that. That is something the individual player has to work on.
Also, Santi Aldama is looking like a legit 6MOY candidate. The Grizzlies can go 13 deep, but he’s still clearly the best 2nd unit player on the roster. 13.5/7.5/3 on 51/39/78 shooting. Strong perimeter defense, too.
Here’s a CRAZY thought: maybe both lakers and warriors are not good as they were originally shoved down our throat by the nba community. Aging stars, terrible roster construction and also maybe other teams got BETTER? Nobody coming to save their legacies anymore, barring a trade with each other.
Who is shoving them down your throat?