LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers have a grueling stretch coming up, and he is not particularly enthusiastic about it.
James took to Instagram on Saturday to share an image of the Lakers’ upcoming schedule, which features a stretch of six games in eight days. The legendary forward did not hide how he feels about the stretch, either.
“This is INSANE!!!!!” James wrote as a caption.
There is a reason for the schedule crunch. The Lakers had two home games postponed in early January due to the Los Angeles wildfires. One of those games, against the Charlotte Hornets, was made up last Wednesday, but the March 17 game against the Spurs was originally meant to be played on Jan. 11. That caused the Milwaukee game originally scheduled on March 18 to be pushed back to March 20, taking away one of the team’s days off.
James’ frustration is understandable, but with less than two months to go in the regular season, the NBA did not have an abundance of options to allow that San Antonio game to be played. It was inevitably going to lead to a brutal run of games for the Lakers at some point.
James controversially sat out the All-Star Game, so he has had some rest recently. One would also assume the Lakers will manage him very carefully through this stretch of games, and he probably will not play in all of them. Still, it is not an ideal scenario for a team that will be trying to avoid falling into play-in territory in the Western Conference standings.
Though he just turned 40, James continues to perform at a high level. He is averaging 24.7 points, 8.9 assists, and 7.7 rebounds while playing 34.6 minutes per game.
