Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick said it "may not be in the best interests" of LeBron James to feature in all 82 games this season after losing to the Minnesota Timberwolves. (More NBA News)
The Lakers have now lost five of their last seven games af🎶t💫er winning six in a row, the latest defeat coming on Monday in a 109-80 thrashing against the Timberwolves.
And four-time MVP James, who turns 40 this month, endured a difficult outing, missing 12 of 16 shots while manag🌊ing a season-low of just 10 points in 31 minutes.
James also registered more turnovers (six) than assists (four) in the defe🐲at, as the Lakers scored their fewest points since a 12💯2-73 loss to the Dallas Mavericks in January 2017.
After James made it clear that he wanted to play all 8🃏2 games earlier this season, coach Redick said he was uns♎ure whether that goal was sustainable.
"W🍒e are measuring the players, and we can tell when a guy is running hot. He does a remarkable job of taking care of his body and recovering," Redick said.
"But I don't know if it's in the best interests of him or us if he does that. But if he's feeling well and good, he should play. But obviously, we want to manage that the best we ca💞n."
"I've not seen us play⭕ the way we played earlier in the year," Redick added. "I mean, I've got to spend all day tomorrow with my staff trying to figure out how we get back to that."
James played in his 1,80🌟0th game on Monday between the regular season and playoffs combined, the most all-time by any player, ahead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1,797).
Despite reaching that landmark, h🧸e did not commit either way to continuing to suit up in every game this season amid his recent run of form.
&quꦏot;It's everything," James said when asked what is frustrating him about his game at the moment. "It's the rhythm. Iꦉ just felt off rhythm the last few, three or four games."
When asked wha♕t he would lean on to get his shot back, James replied: "Work. Just work. That's all."
Anthony Davis also had a season low against Minnesota, to💧talling just 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting with 11 rebounds and five assists.
"We g♎ot to get back into our spacing," Davis said. "We are kind of on top of each other when guys are trying to drive.
"When guys are in their spots for shooting, there's ꦡa guy right under them. So the spacing is bad."
With one quarter of the regular season completed, the Lakers are 12-9, sitting eighth in the Western Conference with the Miami Heat up 🐭next.
Redick labelled his side's season as "inconsistent" so far, with Davies more pointed in his critiques o๊f his team-mates.
"Some🥃times we look like a team that can compete with anyone, 𒅌and sometimes we look like a team that looks terrible and is not going to do anything this season," he said.
"So we have just g𓄧ot to figure out what team we want to be for the rest of the season.
ꦿ"I think we had games where we were phenomenal, and we had games where we were disgusting, like tonight."
