EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — You saw the gray in his beard. You heard the cracks in his voice. And you knew, as much as ever, that you were speaking to a 40-year-old NBA star.
LeBron James was, after all, talking about the problems his sciatic nerve irritation had caused, the anxiety about the discomfort he might feel when he’d hit his mattress at night, or the pain he might feel when he took his first steps each morning.
As much as ever, you wouldn’t need to squint too hard to see the end.
But this isn’t that. No, James’ first practice on Monday was more of a beginning. It was the start of his entering a team and environment he wasn’t solely responsible for defining.
It was the first day for the Los Angeles Lakers in full, with James back with his teammates and on the cusp of joining them for a game.
“I’m a ballplayer. The best thing about me and the way I’ve built my game over my whole life and the coaches in Little League, I’ve never had a position,” James said. “(Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra) used to always say, ‘Positionless basketball. Be positionless.’ There’s not one team, not one club in the world that I cannot fit in and play for.
“I can do everything on the floor. So, whatever this team needs me to do, I can do it when I’m back to myself.”
James is questionable Tuesday against the Utah Jazz in Los Angeles, and without a doubt, he won’t be “back” to a recognizable version of himself. His typical offseason routine was shattered even before the sciatica; the MCL sprain from last year’s playoff loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves kept him from doing much for more than two months. The sciatic pain, something James said he wouldn’t wish on anyone, soon followed.
“Everything kind of changed,” James said. “The whole dynamic changed with how I was going to prepare for the season.”
The changes coincided with the Lakers making their own changes. This offseason, they fully gave themselves over to Luka Dončić, who rewarded the team’s trust (and max extension) by getting into great shape. Austin Reaves, whom James has empowered repeatedly over the past four seasons, has further blossomed with high-usage minutes.
Fourteen games into the season, the Lakers (10-4) are winning, and they’ve done it without James playing a second. The vibes are incredibly strong, the jokes flying, the silliness flowing and the trash-talking deafening.
Still, the Lakers have missed his athleticism. They’ve missed his aggressive drives to the rim in transition, his work downcourt as a physical wide receiver, his talk on defense and his otherworldly understanding of the game.
And despite the 10 wins, they’ve just missed him.
“Just presence. He’s, in my opinion, the greatest player to ever touch basketball,” Reaves said. “And I guarantee you, if you ask basically our whole team, a lot of the young guys would say he is their favorite player ever. So, his presence, his ability to lift up a team and, obviously, his IQ. Yeah, it’s just, it’s good to have him back.”
Though James said he hasn’t missed life on the road, he has watched his teammates forge early-season bonds and chemistry without him, and he’s eager to catch up.
“The guys have been going on road trips, shootarounds, flights. I have to work my way back into the fold of things,” he said. “So it’s kind of like a kid going to a new school again — got to learn the guys and everything. So, they got some great chemistry. Feeling my way back in, and do it organically. It shouldn’t be hard. But it’s definitely a feel-out process.”
But while James told Dončić to “fit the f— out” before his first game as a Laker, one of James’ strengths is that he has the game to fit in.
“I would describe him as very adaptable,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Not just in my time, but he’s adapted throughout his career to the system, his teammates, what the game requires. The league has evolved. He’s evolved. That’s why he’s still in Year 23 and coming off of All-NBA season in Year 22; I think he’s always been able to adapt. And again, it’s not like, you know, the playing with Luka, playing with this version of AR, it’s not like he hasn’t done that already. He did it for 2 1/2, three months last season.
“So, I don’t expect it to be perfect, but I also don’t expect it to be like, ‘Oh, these guys have never seen each other and met each other and don’t know each other’s name.’ They know what each of them bring. And it’ll be fairly positive from the get-go.”