The season hasn’t gone the way the Los Angeles Lakers had hoped, and with injuries piling up as well as missed opportunities to get wins over bad teams, it now appears that the playoffs are out of reach. With that being the case, the Lakers will reportedly place a minutes restriction on star forward LeBron James and may have him sit in back-to-back situations.
On this episode of the Lakers Nation News Feed, host Trevor Lane explains why, given the circumstances, this is actually a positive move for both James and the team. It’s not the outcome that the Lakers were hoping for, but with the situation that they currently find themselves in, there weren’t many other options.
After five seasons of sitting on the sidelines during the playoffs, the belief was that James, who arrived last summer as a free agent, would lead the team back to the postseason. That didn’t happen, and now the team has to regroup and figure out a way to build a winner for next year.
The silver lining is that they do still have their draft pick, which means that they could jump up in the draft if the basketball gods smile upon Los Angeles once again. In order to increase their odds they may need to lose more games down the stretch, though that’s something that the team has been doing fairly well anyway.
James is under contract for at least two more seasons after this one, with a player option for a third season. So it’s in the Lakers’ best interest to do what they can to make sure that their star is completely healthy to begin next season.
While this season didn’t pan out the way they wanted, limiting James’ risk of injury is a smart move.