When the Los Angeles Lakers signed LeBron James, there was plenty of attention given to his playing in the Western Conference for the first time. James dominated the Eastern Conference to the tune of three championships and eight consecutive NBA Finals appearances.
Beyond jumping to what was perceived as a more competitive and difficult conference, there were questions over how James would adjust to longer flights on road trips that had the Lakers flying into different time zones.
He and the team were a bit sluggish out of the gate, losing three consecutive games and five of the first seven. Of course, much of that was attributed to James and the new-look Lakers learning how to play with each other.
They closed October with a nail-biting victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Halloween, and are 6-2 thus far in November. On a personal level, James has turned in 44- and 51-point performances in two of the last three games.
He attributed some of that surge to growing more comfortable in his new setting, both on and off the court, as seen on Spectrum SportsNet:
“I spent 33 years of my life on the East Coast. So going to the West Coast, everything changes even though it’s just three hours. Everything gets changed for me drastically. When you live on the east side of the country for so long, I think it’s taken me a little while to get adjusted with my game, with the moving, my family, everything. We were all figuring things out. I always go month by month. Obviously, I didn’t shoot the ball as well as I would like to but I put in enough time and I knew it was all going to figure itself out because of the work I put into my game.”
Through the eighth November games, James is averaging 29.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 5.9 assists. Perhaps most impressively, he’s shooting 50 percent behind the arc, after knocking down only 27.3 percent of his 3-pointers in October.
James has made at least two 3-pointers in the past seven games. He made what was a season-high five attempts from deep en route to scoring 44 points against the Portland Trail Blazers, then bested it with six 3-pointers in the emphatic win against the Miami Heat.