LeBron James is back to being the main man for the Los Angeles Lakers with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves sidelined due to hamstring and oblique injuries, respectively. In his last three games, he has averaged 28 points a game on 60% field-goal shooting while posting at least 11 assists in each contest.
He has an opportunity to be the hero and possibly lead the Lakers past the first round of the playoffs while Doncic and Reaves recover from their ailments. Chris Broussard said on Fox Sports 1’s “First Things First” that James might be better as a facilitator for the Lakers than Doncic is, but with one key exception.
“Obviously he moves into the Luka role of handling the ball more and distributing and running the offense,” Broussard said. “He might do that better than Luka. … He doesn’t dominate, dribble as much as Luka so he moves the ball a little faster in my view. The thing is, Luka can’t go do what LeBron did a month ago and be off the ball, Luka just has to have the ball in his hands.”
James’ ability to play off the ball, something Doncic hasn’t developed, at least not yet, has allowed him to throttle back and be L.A.’s third option when the team has been fully healthy. It worked well, as the team won 16 of 18 games until Doncic and Reaves got hurt in an April 2 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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The onus is now on James to at least keep the Lakers alive in the postseason until both of his co-stars could potentially return. He has led a few of his teams in the past to playoff series victories when they were underdogs, and he will have the opportunity to do so again very soon.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Broussard: LeBron James runs Lakers’ offense better than Luka Doncic