LeBron, Lakers, approaching the season as a marathon and sprint

On their first road trip of the season, the Los Angeles Lakers didn’t practice at all. Instead, while training camp on the way to Phoenix, Arizona, for two preseason games against the Suns to wrap up their exhibition roster, the Lakers spent their time in the filming room, giving their new players a quick introduction to how this team makes as many adjustments in the dark while watching the tape as it does when it hits the ground.

When the Lakers swept the playoffs last year in the bubble, losing just five games en route to their 17th championship, it was hard to argue with the approach of saving their legs. It will be even harder to object this season, when they only had two months between their last game of the NBA Finals and their first preseason game.

One of the results of that truncated breakup? The Lakers are still trying to get their legs under them, which is why Frank Vogel gave the team the day after their last preseason game (Saturday), saying they’ll be back in the gym for “a conditioning-based practice on Sunday. “Before” slowing down Monday and preparing for Tuesday night, “his first game of the season against the Clippers. As they wrap up camp, getting everyone on the same page is still a work in progress, as the entire roster handles the bumps and bruises while integrating the new additions to the team.

“We would like the season to start a little later. Right now we are trying to find a rhythm, “said Lakers guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope after the Lakers closed the preseason undefeated (4-0) with their second consecutive victory back over the Suns, highlighting the high level that this group establishes for themselves, how they become dissatisfied with the apparent perfection.

And their expectations for themselves are not diminishing, despite the short layoff and despite the Lakers understanding that they have to take it easy sometimes. There has been a perception from some, okay, including this jerk, who picked them to finish fourth in the West, that the Lakers, after coming out of their championship and because of how quickly they come back to play, they won’t. take the regular season so seriously at first.

Caldwell-Pope says that is not accurate.

“We’re going to approach them like every game means something,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We don’t want to start slow. I know we have a target on our back. Everyone is going to enter wanting to beat us. Everyone will be ready. I feel like our mindset is that we’ll be ready too.

“We have our leaders, LeBron and AD. His mentality is like, ‘Man, we don’t care if it’s preseason. We want to go out and chase him, ‘”Caldwell-Pope continued. “In four days the regular season begins and we will be ready.”

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To a man, most of the Lakers have told him basically the same thing throughout camp. But there are still signs that despite such bravery, this is a team that understands where it is, and knows that while winning regular season games is great, the most important thing for a group that just won the title and has barely had free time will stay healthy. James has (understandably) sounded more open to load management than last season, and more patient than perhaps ever before in his career.

“I feel that for the time we’ve had (in training camp), which hasn’t been that long, we’ve worked and improved. Obviously we are not where we want to be in the long term, but that is something that is absolutely fine, because it is a long season. It’s a long trip. But I think to the boys’ credit, we’ve gotten better as the days go by, ”James said.

James, who will be 36 in less than two weeks, says he will consult with his teammates, coaching staff and training staff, and with his longtime personal trainer, Mike Mancias, about how difficult it is to push yourself during the regular season. But as much as all those voices matter, there will be one that you will hear above all of them.

“My body will tell me where I am,” James said. “We are a marathon team. We understand that we are not in a sprint. We have to improve every day. “

The definition of a marathon is “a long-distance run, strictly a 26-mile, 385-yard (42,195 km)”, but more colloquially, it means that someone knows that their day-to-day, minute-to-minute pursuit is less important than completing the task they are doing. James used that word multiple times while speaking to the media on Friday, and has dropped it so much during training camp that it could well be the Lakers’ Sesame Street word of the month.

That mentality showed on the court at times during the two preseason games James played, with the entire team looking rather carefree and slow as he let the Suns build up the lead. At least until the Lakers, as seasoned long-distance running backs, chose their spots to fire up the afterburners and leave their opponents in the dust.

James says doing it is not as paradoxical as it might seem. This team can live in the moment while still understanding that the season will be a test of endurance.

“You can do both,” James insists. “You just want to get better every day. We want to improve every day on the court, at games, during training sessions or during movie sessions, on the road or at home. Preparing our minds and preparing our bodies for the long term. So I’ll see how we continue to improve each month, throughout each game, throughout each journey, each step, and then go from there. “

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As the Lakers’ head coach, Vogel will be the man in charge of balancing it all. You know it will be a challenge.

“It’s an unprecedented kind of off-season. Not only do you have the shorter offseason, but you are coming out of an environment where you were in a bubble for three months, three and a half months, so you need to get over that mentally first and then you need to start thinking. about preparing his body and mind for the upcoming season, “said Vogel. “It’s not an offseason where you’re going into the offseason saying ‘I want to add certain things to my game,’ it’s really about trying to refresh your mind, keep your body in shape, maintain your skills and get back to work. “

Despite that, Vogel still gave each Lakers player an individualized plan of things he wanted them to work on during their break if they had the time. For Kyle Kuzma, they were instructions to work harder on launching the play, and we’ve seen how hard young player Talen Horton-Tucker worked to start running. Yet for some of the Lakers veterans, Vogel knew they would just need time to escape and rest their minds, as well as any injuries they sustained during the team’s title race. Caldwell-Pope’s outspokenness made it clear that he was in the last group, and that he was not alone, saying the entire team seemed “a bit lost” on points during their final preseason game.

“I don’t want to say it will take me a minute to get back in shape, but I’m running out of breath. It’s going to take time to get back to that rhythm. Especially the pace of the game. Running up and down the court. We had a short offseason trying to recover from the injuries we had or the bruises we had from last season, ”Caldwell-Pope said. “I feel like we are handling it day by day, even in practice or in games. If you feel something, you don’t want to force it. Just take care.”

That’s where the Lakers’ depth could come into play and could bridge the apparent gap between his comments about taking every part of the regular season seriously while saying they need to be cautious. On the first day of training camp, Vogel promised that whoever was on the court would play as hard as the Lakers did last year, and maybe that mindset: everyone who’s playing goes for it, while everyone who need to sit down taking a break, it may be what allows them to pass.

“We will play every minute of every regular season game like it’s the championship because that’s part of what we won for us in the playoffs last year. It’s that mentality, that every time we’re on the court we’re playing harder than our own. opponent, period, and we care more than our opponent, period. This is just a way of life for us, ”Vogel said then. “So we’re not clear on, if I’m talking about going into this season, it’s really about understanding where the guys are from a conditioning standpoint, from an offseason recovery standpoint and just making sure there’s proper preparation in the camp with that.

“But when we go into the season, for sure in every game that we play, we play to play harder than our opponent, we care more about the win that night than our opponent, because that’s the number one habit you can build to. Throughout the regular season, it’s the habit of winning, and having that mindset every time we go out on the court (last year) paid dividends in the playoffs, and that will be the mindset this year, ”continued Vogel. “What I like about this is that it doesn’t mean the guys are going to have to play 45 minutes a night. We have so much depth that we can balance that while still having all five guys on the court competing like hell. “

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It won’t be easy to do that for such a short period of time, but it’s not supposed to be easy to win championships.

“We are all trying to get the most out of this. We’re going to have some nasty moments early in the season as a result of that, ”Vogel admitted on Friday. “That is simply the nature of what we are going through. Nobody complains about that, nobody feels sorry for us. We don’t feel sorry for ourselves. We will be ready to go and make the best of the first part of the season. “

His players insist they are up to the challenge.

“As a team, we have a long way to go, in terms of building that chemistry,” Caldwell-Pope said. “But I know that with the team that we have and the group of guys that are here, I know that it will be as soon as possible that we get it together.”

Whether physically, mentally or metaphorically, whether in the filming room or in a rare session on the practice field, the Lakers will take turns, running toward that goal every day.

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