Lakers Plan To Limit LeBron James Minutes This Season

LeBron James played only 29 minutes in the Los Angeles Lakes season-opening loss at the Denver Nuggets. Following the game, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham said that’s the plan for this season.

“It’s easy with him to get caught up in the emotion of the game and you tend to forget you want to play these long stretches, but in order for him to be as effective as possible, we have to be mindful of the minute output and how long his stretches are,” Ham said.

Ham said the plan is to limit James to 28-30 minutes per game, but that it would be a “day-by-day process”. For his part, James wasn’t “surprised or upset” by the relatively low minutes he played.

“Listen, I mean, I always want to be on the floor. Especially when you got an opportunity to win a game or you feel like you can make an impact,” James said. “But this is the system in place and I’m going to follow it.”