Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James is entering Year 22 of his illustrious career and is now starting to play with and against players who grew up watching him.
LeBron has been playing at a high level for so long that he is going to get his lifelong wish of playing with his son Bronny James as the current plan is to reportedly have them share the floor on Opening Night.
Aside from Bronny, rookie guard Quincy Olivari is also relishing the opportunity to play with a living legend like LeBron. Olivari made a name for himself when he led the Lakers to a fourth-quarter comeback against the Milwaukee Bucks, marking the team’s first preseason victory.
Olivari hasn’t been shy talking to LeBron, peppering him with questions as he tries to build a relationship with him, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“I just ask a lot of questions so the first thing I did when I saw him was ask him about his school because a goal for me it to always make the community that I’m from, Atlanta, better than it was when I was growing up,” Olivari said. “Even though it’s not bad, I just want to make an impact there so I asked him about his I Promise School and what was his thought process about that and how that came to fruition.
“Every day it was just a new question. One of the more recent questions I asked him was yesterday watching the ‘Starting Five’ was how does he handle media. As an athlete of his stature, everybody is gonna have something to say. How did you begin to block that out and just kind of focus on yourself? Because he came in the league at 18 and I’m pretty sure with the career that I want to have, it’s gonna come with negative media bash and just being ready to handle that. So every day when I first saw him, it was just always a question.”
Olivari seems very intentional with the questions he’s asked James and the latter is the perfect resource because of his time and experience in the league. Olivari might not make the Lakers’ parent team when the roster is cut down to 15 players, but he’s definitely making the most of their time together.
LeBron James was not on board with minutes restriction during 2023-24 season
Because of LeBron James’ age, former Lakers head coach Darvin Ham placed him on a minutes restriction to begin the 2023-24 season. However, in the Netflix’s docuseries “Starting 5,” LeBron voiced his displeasure about the minutes limit.
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