When LeBron James stated during the opening week of the regular season that he was aiming to play in all 82 games this season, Lakers head coach JJ Redick expressed support for that goal. However, with James mired in a slump and the Lakers struggling, Redick indicated after Monday’s loss to Minnesota that he may revisit that plan.
“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, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “But we obviously want to … manage that as best we can.”
After scoring just 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting and committing six turnovers on Monday, James is now averaging 16.8 points and five turnovers per game with a .398/.100/.857 shooting line in his past six outings. The Lakers, whose 118.3 offensive rating ranked fourth in the NBA through their first 15 games, have a 102.4 mark in those six games, the league’s third-worst mark since November 23.
While it’s possible James would benefit from the occasional rest day – Monday’s performance came on the second night of a back-to-back – his recent slump hasn’t been the sole cause of the Lakers’ offensive struggles. Star big man Anthony Davis, who made just 4-of-14 shot attempts in the loss to the Timberwolves, cited “bad” spacing and referred to the team’s overall performance as “disgusting.” James agreed, calling L.A.’s offense “nasty right now,” per McMenamin.
“I’ve not seen us play the way we played earlier in the year,” Redick said. “I mean, I’ve got to spend all day (Tuesday) with my staff trying to figure out how we get back to that.”
As Jovan Buha of The Athletic writes, a Lakers defense that ranked near the bottom of the league during the season’s first month has been a little more effective lately, but the improvement on the defensive end hasn’t made up for the drop-off on offense.
“I really believe we’ve gotten better defensively,” Redick said. “And I think we’ve spent a lot of time as a staff defensively. And this is the nature of the NBA season. You don’t have a ton of time. The things you emphasize, hopefully, you get better at. And sometimes when you don’t emphasize something, or you don’t work on something because you don’t necessarily have time, or you think you’re good at it and you think you have buy-in at it, you just get slippage. We gotta clean that up.”
The Lakers still have a solid 12-9 record, but that’s only good for the No. 8 spot in a competitive Western Conference and gives the club just a 1.5-game cushion on the No. 11 Wolves. Given that the playoff race figures to remain tight all season, how does James, who will turn 40 later this month, feel about relenting on his plan to play all 82 games?
“That’s a goal, but, we’ll see,” James said, according to McMenamin. “It’s something I ain’t discussing right now.”
Who didn’t see that coming with JJ playing those 2 too many minutes. Early in season they have energy but now it’s catching up to them. All teams are having a lot of injuries lately.
JJ the renowned defensive guru.
JJ ain’t making it 82 games either
Olympics are already taking players out. Suns are next.
This was inevitable when JJ’s “genius” idea was to run the offense around a 40 year old man and Mr Glass. There’s a reason the 20 coaches before Redick did not attempt to make AD the offensive focal point on teams. His body cannot handle it. Just playing defense every game is already hard enough.
There’s also a reason the Lakers did best when someone else was scoring, especially Reaves.
Sad but true. If AD had the resolve of LBJ he probably could have been one of the top 3 or 4 all-time players IMO.
2nd game of back-to-back road games, anyone would be tired.
We are currently in the middle of the “LeBron James Farewell Tour”. It is at the part where LeBron brings his son on stage to sing with him, so he can cross that off the bucket list. It looks like he will be on stage all the way through the 2025-26 season, so Laker fans are just gonna have to deal with it, and figure out how to be a contender again in a couple of years.
Everyone must be joking here. This guy takes games off every year and now we hear this. Is this April fools day today? This is like if your dog poops in the house then you go to scold it and then it shoves your face in the poop. Is LeBron and JJ punking us. Everyone got paid and that’s all that matters to most of them
Alot of excuses in here
What’s yours?
A plan? Certainly not a realistic one. Since going to LA, LeBron hasn’t come close to playing 82 games (and averaged maybe 60 games a year). Aspirations are fine, but plan for reality.