Lakers News: Frank Vogel Reveals Plan for LeBron James in the Preseason

Los Angeles Lakers coach Frank Vogel said he does not expect to play LeBron James "a ton" during the preseason to help preserve his body. 

"We want to be intelligent," Vogel told reporters Sunday. "We want to get him enough reps to get him familiar with his teammates and get everybody on the same page, some cohesiveness. But certainly going to be intelligent and not overdo it in the preseason."

James, who turns 35 in December, played a career-low 55 games during a disappointing 2018-19 season. A groin injury suffered on Christmas Day proved to be the most serious injury of his career, costing him more than a month. The Lakers later shut him down in March after being eliminated from playoff contention.

Vogel did not say how often he plans on playing James during the team's six preseason games. He highlighted a necessity to get LeBron and Anthony Davis on the floor as much as possible when they are in preseason games and said he can see chemistry developing on the floor already.

"I feel like we're ready to play right now," Vogel said. "We put a lot of stuff in, both offensively with our full offense and the variety of things you can do out of it, as well as a lot of our defensive coverages. We've had a really productive first couple of days, and I'm not worried about us not being ready to play games against Golden State or in China."

The Lakers enter the season among a handful of teams expected to compete for an NBA title. However, their roster is arguably in a more precarious position than most in that conversation because of James' age and injuries already cropping up. DeMarcus Cousins suffered a torn ACL in August that will cause him to miss the entire season, and Kyle Kuzma is expected to miss the preseason with an ongoing foot issue.

The Lakers are also a veteran-laden roster, with six rotation players who are 30 or older. They'll be reliant on players like Avery Bradley, Rajon Rondo and Dwight Howard to bounce back from disappointing stretches in their career and be vital parts of the rotation.

Preseason matters to the Lakers less than perhaps any other team in the NBA. Vogel is not going to play veterans extended minutes in meaningless games when they have a long view of what's to come in April, May and (perhaps) June. LeBron is the most important cog in the Lakers' aging engine, and it would be borderline unnecessary to play him more than a handful of minutes with the starting lineup. 

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