Warriors All Star Draymond Green is certainly no fan of the Cavs, but he is concerned about the high number of minutes that LeBron James continues to pile up. And just for the record, James agrees.
In Cleveland’s 115-107 road win over the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday night, James posted 31 points on 12-24 shooting from the field (4-7 from beyond the arc), eight assists, six rebounds, two steals, and one block in a reasonable 37 minutes.
James, now 32 years of age, currently leads the NBA in minutes played per game (38.1). His 28.3 points per game rank fourth in the league.
Green tells USA Today that James seems to have super human powers, but he thinks they might run out at this pace.
“Yeah, he’s super human but eventually his super-human powers go away,” Green told USA Today.
“That would be more of my concern if I’m a Cavs fan or somebody with the Cavs or a player, is like ‘Man, he’s been playing a lot of 40 minute (nights) and it’s only Nov. 12,'” Green said.
Green makes a solid point. James has already played 40 or more minutes in six games this season. James did agree, but he also mentioned the fact that Cleveland has been dealing with several injuries through the early stages of this season.
Via Joe Vardon of cleveland.com:
“Draymond’s right,” James told cleveland.com, after Green’s comments were relayed to him. “We want to get those minutes down for sure. But as of right now, we’ve had two point guards out and we’ve had some different lineup changes, so, I’ve had to play more minutes than I would like, and more minutes than my teammates would like me to have.
“The caliber of players that we have, you always would like to, you know, get a couple more minutes here, couple more minutes there, and be a lot fresher down the stretch,” James said. “Draymond’s right, he’s right on point with it. But there’s going to be games where I have to play 40. There’s going to be games where I can play 32.
“Hopefully it all evens out, especially when IT (Isaiah Thomas) comes back, D Rose (Derrick Rose) comes back, Tristan (Thompson) comes back, we get more firepower.”
Green, a player who James has faced in the three consecutive Finals, says the Cavs do have a few issues, but it isn’t time to “hit the panic button yet.”
“I wouldn’t be pressing the panic button just yet,” Green told USA Today. “At the end of the day, they know how to win. They’ve got a guy who knows how to win, so I wouldn’t necessarily press the panic button. I would see certain things and I would panic about those certain things, just because…I don’t think nobody should be playing 40 minutes a game in November.”
The Cavs will be back in action on Friday night, when they’ll host the L.A. Clippers inside Quicken Loans Arena. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. EST with Fox Sports Ohio having live broadcast coverage. Let’s see how many minutes James plays.
