Anthony Davis is living in a whole new universe after entering the orbit of LeBron James. Although last night’s preseason game was ultimately an exhibition against a Steph Curry-less Golden State Warriors team, Davis is enjoying a more off-ball role where James can set him up for easy reads.
And the obvious follow-up to that is if Davis is feeling an easier workload, could that also turn out to be the case for LeBron James? For the last five or six years, people have wondered about when LeBron will taper off his regular season workload. And in basically each of those years, LeBron’s teams came to rely on his elite decision-making and scoring. Although he has more help, LeBron doesn’t see much difference in his role this season.
Via USA TODAY National NBA Writer Mark Medina
“I’m born to have workload,” James said. “It is who I am, both on and off the floor.”
“I’ve trained my body all through the summer to be able to take contact, fall on the ground and be able to get up,” James said. “So I’ve just been blessed to put myself in drastic situations where I can jump up in the air, turn and fall and also get up and be able to get back on defense and get back to the timeout on the play.”
LeBron and Davis have thrived on the court together in the exhibition season, with last night probably being the highlight of their play as they both played well into the 2nd half.
Without Rajon Rondo in the fold, LeBron was exclusively running the offense last night but still led the team in usage-rate with a 26.4 USG%. What could change most this year for LeBron is his assist percentage, which fell below 40% last season for the first time in three seasons.
