(News4usonline) – There has been a lot of moving parts around the Los Angeles Lakers this season. That all started during the offseason with the team making moves and wheeling and dealing. Players have come and players have gone.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a business like that. The one constant for the Lakers this season has been the superlative play of LeBron James. There’s been the adjustment of trying to get guard Russell Westbrook up to speed in how the Lakers do things. Carmelo Anthony is fitting in as the Lakers’ go-to with long-range shooting.
But the team has had to adapt to losing forward Anthony Davis for at least a month or more. Then there’s been the shuffling of players like Isaiah Thomas, Rajon Rondo, and Darren Collison, who are all gone. Center DeAndre Jordan has given the team next to nothing. And so, the Lakers have been playing, up to this point, like a time, not sure of itself.
Their one game above .500 record before they play Tre Young and Atlanta Hawks and Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies this weekend reflects that. And if you take out of the equation what James has done over the course of the last month and a half, the Lakers would probably be down or near the bottom of the Western Conference’s Pacific Division.
Since the first day of December, James, who is averaging 28.6 and 7.4 rebounds per game this season, has recorded 11 games in which he has scored 30 points or more. At one point, James ran a streak, beginning with a 31-point performance against the Chicago Bulls on Dec. 19 to his season-high 43 points against the Portland Trail Blazers on New Year’s Eve, of producing seven games straight in which he registered at least 30 points.
That sounds pretty ridiculous for a guy who is 37 and playing in his 19th season. But then again, James has always done the unthinkable throughout his well-decorated career.
“This is just a LeBron James thing, and playing at a superior level more than it is about the environment around
him,” Lakers head coach Frank Vogel said. “Obviously, he has a strong belief in our group, we all have a strong belief in our group and while AD [Anthony Davis] is out, he’s intent on doing everything he can to pile up some W’s, and obviously playing at an extremely high level.”
The high energy of James has kept the Lakers from derailing their season completely. During the team’s five-game losing skid in December, James kept the Lakers afloat with four straight games of scoring 30 points or more. With the Lakers on a mini-win streak before they engage the Hawks and Grizzlies, James has hit the 30 plus mark in two of the team’s last three games.
Prior to that, James dropped 37 points on Memphis in a 104-99 road loss to the upstart Grizzlies. It’s crystal clear to Vogel that the level of energy that James brings night in and night out is something that has rubbed off on his teammates.
“No doubt, and I would say there’s two ways separate that type of energy,” Vogel said after the Lakers defeated the Trail Blazers 139-106 on New Year’s Eve. “One, being he exemplifies playing to exhaustion. Hey, you’re going to play probably the first eight minutes of the game, come out around [the] four-minute mark. But he plays so hard, in the first quarter and the third quarter that he gets to exhaustion, that’s when he’s like ‘hey I need to stop’. That’s how we want our group to play.”
“That’s how everyone should play the game,” Vogel added. “Play the game to exhaustion. He’s shown me that. His energy in film sessions and all of our work away from the game is, like the mental energy he brings to the team, the positivity. There’s so much noise around our team and negativity, and he doesn’t let that allow that to filter into our group. We remain focused on the group and building the habits we need to do, figure it out type of mindset and his mental energy in our film sessions and practices is another great way he’s been leading us.”
James said that he has been able to sustain his excellent level of play through nearly two decades by putting mind over matter.
“I don’t feel like I’ve been in the league 19 years,” James said after his 43-point explosion. “When I’m daily reminded of it, I feel it sometimes and even more when I’m reminded every single day of year 19. I try to prepare my mind, my body, my soul on how I can stay young in a young man’s game.
James continued, “Jay-Z has an unbelievable song and a great song, ‘Forever Young’ and it’s about always just keeping your mind- manifesting young things, thoughts in your mind, but also at the same time, keeping up with the young guy. The ultimate chase will be with that, kind of saying ‘You’re too old to be at this stage.’ It’s always a daily reminder.”
Westbrook was brought over to the Lakers via a trade from the Washington Wizards. He is thought to be one of the missing ingredients to the team’s pursuit of an 18th NBA title. When it comes to James, however, Westbrook said it’s best to get James the ball and get out of the way. and let him do his thing.
“You just try to find ways to be able to getting the ball, simple as that,” remarked Westbrook during a postgame press conference. ” He does a good job of staying locked in, sticking to his principles, understanding when he’s in the groove, he stays in attack mode, which we need him to do, miss or make, it’s good for our team.”
James’ streak of consecutive games of scoring 30 points or more ended with a 26-point outing in a Lakers’ 108-103 win against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Lakers had five players reach double-figures in scoring, taking a load off of James. The Lakers also forced 23 Minnesota turnovers in the win.
James said he likes the direction the team is going in.
“We’re playing good basketball as of late,” said James. “Even with some of the losses we had, we were trending in the right direction and I believe we continued to do that tonight. Giving up 20 offensive rebounds is a lot. We have to do a
better job of that. We gave up one point per offensive rebound which is really good. They had 20 second-chance
points off 20 offensive rebounds. We were at least making an effort to get back out and get stops, so that’s good.”
Featured Image Caption: Los Angeles Lakers forward Lebron James (6) flies to the basket against the Los Angeles Clippers. Photo by Mark Hammond/News4usonline
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