Even at 40 years old, LeBron James continues to dominate the NBA as he’s got the Los Angeles Lakers in a good spot more than halfway through the 2024-25 season.
James has been available for most of the team’s games so far which in turn has allowed head coach JJ Redick to roll out his preferred lineups. James is a master at pacing himself over the course of a regular season but since Luka Doncic arrived he’s looked as energized as ever.
Following the Doncic trade, James has been focused on making himself available during the backhalf of the schedule, though the team will face a daunting slate of games midway in March. The wildfire situation in Los Angeles forced the NBA to reschedule games in the interest of public safety and the updated schedule was not kind to the Lakers who have a stretch of six games in eight nights.
James saw the upcoming schedule and had an emphatic response, via NBA on ESPN:
LeBron's reaction to the Lakers playing six games in eight days next month. pic.twitter.com/VjaiXQlBgz
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) February 22, 2025
The league rescheduled the Lakers’ Saturday, Jan. 11 game against the San Antonio Spurs for Monday, March 17. Concurrently, the NBA also moved their game against the Milwaukee Bucks from Tuesday, March 18 to Thursday, March 20. There are two sets of back-to-back games in addition to the other two, making this by far their most difficult part of their schedule.
Even though James has shown he is mostly healthy aside from his ankle discomfort, the team has to be cautious with how much they deploy him and the other veterans on their team. Injury luck hasn’t been on Los Angeles’ side in recent years and the worst possible outcome is for James to get hurt down the stretch.
As of now, there aren’t any concrete plans to rest James during that portion of the schedule but it’s reasonable to assume the two sides will have conversations on how to best manage it. Keeping James as fresh as possible for the playoffs is of the utmost importance, so it’ll be interesting to see how they navigate things.
Love for the game still driving LeBron James at 40 years old
At 40 years old, LeBron James is rewriting how effective older players like himself can still be in the NBA. When asked how James is able to play this well, he attributed it to his love of the game.
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