LeBron James recorded nine points, three rebounds and three assists in just 15 minutes of his Los Angeles Lakers debut on Sunday night.
As the Lakers lost their preseason opener to the Denver Nuggets, James discussed what he took away from the matchup.
“Yeah, I mean, of course you take something from it, because we’ve been working on habits for the first week,” he said.
“It’s good to go against a different opponent instead of each other. We knew there were going to be times where we struggled, not move the ball as well as we liked to, a couple breakdowns defensively. But it’s good to have those things you can work on. You have something to look forward.”
Since James played most of his minutes in the first quarter, he liked what the starting lineup was able to accomplish with Rajon Rondo, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Brandon Ingram and JaVale McGee alongside him.
“We were trying to move the ball, share the ball, get the ball from side to side, and communicating defensively, flying around, gang rebounding,” James said. “We gave up some offensive rebounds in early on the first quarter, but if we clean those up we can get out in transition. Our pace was good and our space was good, too.”
With eight new players, patience will be required for the Lakers, but James liked the level of communication following the loss.
“There’s a lot of communication,” James said. “I can’t break down everything that we talked about, but we talked about a lot. That’s going to be good for our ballclub.”
Overall, James enjoyed his debut for the Lakers as he embarks on a new journey in the Western Conference for the 2018-19 NBA season.
“It was great to get back on the floor. To start a new journey for myself, hear the Laker fans we have in San Diego, it was a great feeling to go out there and hear the roar.”
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