On the eve of the Lakers’ season opener, Luke Walton has all kinds of questions cramming his brain.
What are the team’s expectations for its defense? (Top 10 in rating.) Who is going to start? (He’d prefer not to answer that one.)
But perhaps the most important question is how Walton will handle the workload of LeBron James.
The 14-time all-star joins the Lakers on the heels of one of the most dominant postseason runs in NBA history, in which he averaged 34.0 points, 9.1 rebounds and 9.0 assists.
Walton acknowledged that it may be tempting to simply give LeBron the ball and watch him make magic. However, he maintained that the other Lakers need to find a balance between letting the world’s greatest player work and shouldering the load themselves.
He even plans to give struggling lineups time to work out their problems. He is willing to give a longer leash at the beginning of the season, in hope that those units will be ready come playoff time.
“It’s easiest to just give [James] the ball — someone as talented as he is,” Walton said at Wednesday’s practice. “And we will. He will have the ball plenty of time. But it’s also important that our guys continue to develop. What we’re talking about is where we’re going to be at the end of the year.”
Walton said that he will play James a “reasonable number” of minutes per game. The Lakers’ new superstar is entering his 16th NBA season (plus nearly three seasons worth of playoff basketball). He has 13 appearances among the NBA’s top 10 in both usage rate and minutes played.
While James may have an unprecedented volume of work on his resume, he has showed no sign of slowing down. He has led the NBA in minutes in back-to-back seasons, and played all 82 games (and 22 postseason contests) last year.
For Walton, it is vital to use a big-picture lens when deciding how much to learn on James.
“We’ve got four years [with James under contract],” Walton said. “We want to make sure that we’re not only playing at our best come the end of the season, but that he’s fresh,” Walton said. “That’s a goal for us. … We’re on a journey, and it’s not a one-year journey.”