Last night’s historic moment for LeBron James washed down another bad night of team basketball, but the King does not remain intoxicated by the career accomplishment. He’s come to terms with the fact that he’s in the final stages of a lost season.
We saw that last night as the Lakers held LeBron to only 31 minutes, having him sit out the end of the first half and key moments in the 4th quarter. But the way the Lakers handled LeBron is just the start of going in cruise control for the remainder of the season.
Yahoo’s Chris Haynes reports that LeBron will be on a minutes restriction for the final 17 games and will not play in back-to-backs.
The Lakers have only three back-to-backs remaining, meaning that James will only play in 14 of the Lakers remaining 17 regular season games.
Also, sitting James out will help the Lakers lose as many games as possible, which will help their lottery odds. As it stands now, the Lakers are slotted for the 11th pick with a 30-35 record and a 6.2% shot at a top 4 pick, as well as a 1.3% shot at the No. 1 pick. However, the Lakers are only 2.5 games back of moving into the 7th slot, which holds a 29.4% chance of getting a top-4 pick.
