LeBron James Rumors: Lakers Still 'Aspire to Limit' Star's Minutes in 21st NBA Season

The Los Angeles Lakers remain hopeful of curtailing LeBron James' playing time a bit with the four-time MVP logging nearly 35 minutes a night, according to ESPN's Dave McMenamin.

McMenamin reported Tuesday that "all parties involved aspire to limit James' minutes when the team can get fully healthy."

Los Angeles opened with a 119-107 defeat to the Denver Nuggets on Oct. 24, a game that saw James play 29 minutes. Head coach Darvin Ham said that was by design as the Lakers "have to be mindful of the minute output and how long his stretches are."

By Game 2, those plans were already thrown aside. LeBron played 35 minutes in a 100-95 win over the Phoenix Suns on Oct. 26, and his usage has dipped below 30 minutes just twice since opening night. Both of those occasions were blowouts as well.

For Ham, it feels like a fairly straightforward choice. He can have James on the court less or risk watching the Lakers play themselves into a defeat the longer he's on the bench.

Los Angeles has a plus-7.1 net rating when James plays and a minus-16.7 net rating without him, per NBA.com. That's a staggering on/off split and explains exactly why putting the 19-time All-Star on any sort of minutes restriction is much easier said than done.

Perhaps Ham can feel more comfortable resting James when the team is at full strength, but it's not a coincidence James' usage historically starts climbing around January and stays at that level. That's when he and his team are looking toward the postseason, whether it's fighting for playoff seeding or ensuring they're peaking at the right time.

Especially if the Lakers continue to hover around sixth place in the Western Conference, the cutoff for the play-in tournament, Ham may have little choice but to maintain James' current workload.