LeBron James has certainly logged a lot of minutes throughout his 18-year career. Prior to this season, LeBron played just shy of forty thousand minutes in the regular season alone. Factoring in ten trips to finals in his career and all those playoff games, you're up to a total of 49,796 minutes for the 36-year-old. That's good for 7th on the all-time minutes played leaderboard.
With COVID and the delayed NBA bubble, the offseason was shortened to only 72 days, significantly less than the typical 130 or so days. This time is crucial for players to take a break from the wear and tear of the season, work on tweaking their game, and overall deal with any nagging physical issues that may have arisen through the year. LeBron is no stranger to taking care of his body especially at his age, investing over a million dollars a year in trainers recovery therapy, and personal chefs.
As a result, LeBron has almost never missed extended periods of time due to injury outside of 17 games missed due to a groin strain in 2019. Playing too many minutes and exerting too much energy can catch up with a player, leading some fans and analysts to argue LeBron should play less basketball (whether fewer minutes a game or not even dressing) to stay fresher for the playoffs.
LeBron is finally taking a game off tonight… yet he’s 4th in the NBA in minutes played. The Lakers should be very concerned. Now on @undisputed
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) March 3, 2021
Wednesday's game at Sacramento was LeBron's first inactive game this season, having played the Lakers' first 36 games. Over that time he logged the fourth-most minutes in the NBA at 1,245.
Insights into player tracking data over the past few seasons tell us this minutes load may not be such a big deal after all. LeBron is resting during games, especially on the defensive end of the floor, indicated by his average speed decreasing:
A few observations:
- LeBron's decrease in speed isn't reflective of his running or sprinting slower. The average speed calculation just accounts for the total distance traveled in possession over the time of that possession. Decreases in average speed are more reflective of LeBron running less rather than running slower.
- LeBron is one of the "slowest" (again not how fast he runs, how much he runs) defensive players in the NBA this season out of those that average 30MPG and have played more than 25 games.
- The spike in Offensive speed in 2018 is a result of LeBron changing teams from the Cavaliers, then one of the oldest rosters, to the Lakers, one of the younger rosters in the league. With fresher legs around him, LeBron was more able to push the pace and get out in transition.
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