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Magic Johnson, closely monitoring the use of LeBron James, reiterated Thursday that the Los Angeles Lakers would continue to follow their offseason plan of trying to lighten James' burden in relation to his use of Cleveland Cavaliers.
"We are trying to make sure we are watching his minutes, but also that we are not going through it fully because now it is in Cleveland and we do not want it," Johnson said in an interview with SiriusXM NBA Radio. "We want to go up and down."
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After the Lakers basketball president signed a $ 154 million four-year contract this summer with James, Johnson said his team wanted to keep James as fresh as possible for the coming seasons and not focus only on the success of this season. Thus, the Lakers hired free players like Rondo and Lance Stephenson with the vision that veterinarians – with younger players like Lonzo Ball, Bradon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma – would help ease the burden of game creation and further reduce the covered distance. James, 33 years old.
"Basically, a few minutes, we try to make sure we do not overwork him and then we also use the ball in his hands," Johnson told SiriusXM NBA Radio. "We have a lot of ballhandlers, so we feel like we're not overexploiting his treatment and every game has to go through it, I think we have some scorers – Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram … and then when you have two leaders like Ball and Rondo, it's not necessary for LeBron to have the ball in his hands all the time. "
While the Cavaliers encircled James with shooters to take advantage of James' strengths in the game, the Lakers wanted to go in a different direction by adding players able to create their own shots and opportunities for others without relying too much on James.
But James has handled the ball more recently, especially with Rondo who broke his hand two weeks ago. Coach Luke Walton had to rely more on James and Ingram to facilitate Rondo's recovery after an operation.
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Including the game against Portland where Rondo was injured on Nov. 14, James averaged 29.8 points, 8.1 rebounds and 6.0 assists in the last seven Lakers games.
For the season, James is averaging 34.8 minutes, his lowest level in 16 seasons. Last season, James took an average of 36.9 minutes as he played the 82 games for the first time in his career.
The Lakers enter Thursday's game against Indiana on a two-game slide. But they had won nine of their last 13 games.
"We play from top to bottom," Johnson said. "We look good a minute or two and then we are not as beautiful as the next two, so we have not been consistent yet, I think they keep learning to play." with each other and try to adapt to Luke's system.
"I've always said that in January, we were getting better and I still think it's going to happen. Tyson Chandler added to our team because we needed a defense-based backup center for JaVale [McGee] … we still have not come together. Once we have done that, we will be a very good team. "
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