In the first couple of weeks of the season, the Cleveland Cavaliers have struggled to find their footing dropping four out of their first seven games.
During this stretch, LeBron James has continued to play a significant amount of minutes on the floor averaging 37.0 per game, which is currently tied for fourth-most in the league. This is something that James addressed on Wednesday morning stating that this situation has been impacted by the various rule changes the league has made, according to Nikki Goel of ClutchPoints.
“There’s been a lot of rule changes, but you have to adjust to it just like every year. Every year there are a couple rule changes you have to adjust to. With the timeout situation being different than previous years, you got to adjust to it. It’s been a little weird to start the season but [he] will get used to it.”
In his 15th season in the league, the 32-year-old holds a career average of 38.9 minutes per contest and is coming off a campaign where he led the league with 37.8 minutes. It’s clear that James will continue to hold a significant workload that has been accentuated by the slow start that the Cavaliers have had.
This has found the four-time league MVP taking on a larger role to help turn things in the right direction for Cleveland. James has also taken up a greater offensive role through the early portion of the season while the new pieces on the team such as Dwyane Wade, Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose all get further acclimated.
Until the Cavaliers can get back on track, the expectation should be that James will continue to garner a heavy minute workload.