I have mixed feelings on the whole load management thing. There is no magic formula of how many minutes and how many games will make guys “fresher” and prevent injuries.
Stan Van Gundy makes a point that players actually stayed healthier when they played more minutes and worked out harder back in the day because their bodies were better prepared to perform when fatigue began to creep in.
I deal with alot of former college athletes (they seem to gravitate into sales when their playing days are over) and I love to pick their brains about this kinda stuff. One guy told me that the modern game puts so much more stress on players’ bodies because you used to be able to rest a bit in the half court back in the day when big men pounded the ball trying to back their man down for half the shot clock while everybody else kinda stood around. Now there’s constant ball movement, fighting through screens, switching, and then having to run out to challenge a 3pt shot. Huge difference.
Another guy told me that the only real extra rest you get is when you don’t play in a game at all. Soon as you hang your street clothes in the locker, the clock starts and you’re no longer resting. Once you’ve done all the prep and shoot around and get out there on the floor, there isn’t much difference from playing 35 minutes or 40 minutes because you’ve already worked up that “lather”. He said it ain’t like you can put that 5 minutes in the bank and use them at another time.
As for how all this relates to Lebron…dude has 20+ seasons on that body; ain’t but so much you can do at this point. As we saw in Game 4, he can pull it all together for a half but hard to sustain for an entire game. Let alone for an entire post-season. And that was after not even playing 1/3 of the season. None of this really works with him playing at a diminished capacity which is why I think the window is already closed.
AD? No excuse for that dude. His body or his mind just ain’t up for that grind. Not sure which one but it really doesn’t matter.
I look at Kawhi as an example of why load management doesn’t really matter. His body just ain’t right now and you can’t “save” performance minutes at an elite level for later because you didn’t play them last week or whatever.
So, as it relates to LeBron, he can either play or not. I think it also doesn’t matter. Just about every injury he’s sustained has been non-contact. Groin happened moving for the ball. Tendon happened making a basic move. AD, on the other hand, can get injured from a variety of contact issues: dude rolls into his keys, his foot huts Jokic in the air and breaks, stray pigeon impales him. His issue, when healthy, is he simply seems to check out every few games. He’ll say things like “I played the same way I always do…” or BS of some kind in that mold. I’m not fooled, anymore. For every dominant 40/20 game there’s a 14/12 game lurking in the weeds.
Uh, LBJ played 55 Games out of 82, way more than a 3rd. Little mo info, Curry 56, Durant 43, Booker 53, PG 56, Leonard 52, Ja 61, Embiid and Luka 66.
Uh..that’s what I wrote. He didn’t play in 1/3 of the games.
U B right! My bad. Seems like so many Star players can’t even play 70 games. : (
I think having some quality depth behind AD and LeBron is more important than rest day. I would like an add a decent back up center and another combo forward. I thought Ham rode LeBron a little more then he had to, especially in the 2nd half. Use 10 guys through the regular season. We actually played pretty well when LeBron went down. AD is harder to replace because he is the backbone of the defense. We play more aggressively on the perimeter when he is in the game. A center that can give us a good 10 to 15 minutes of solid defense would be a welcome addition.