Will Father Time ever catch LeBron James?

LeBron James has redefined the word unprecedented, but is he still going to be able to fend off Father Time this season?

Welcome to our Lakers Season Preview Series! For the next several weeks, we’ll be writing columns every week day, breaking down the biggest questions we have about every player the Lakers added this offseason. Today, we take a look at LeBron James.

While X/Twitter has devolved into something of a shell of what it once was, some of the classics still live on deep in the archives. One of the posts shared often throughout the NBA season will turn a decade old this season.

It came from a Warriors fan who, on the heels of LeBron James dropping a casual 37-18-13 stat line in Game 3 of the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, celebrated that LeBron was 30 years old and he couldn’t keep doing this for long.

Fast forward to 2024 and LeBron has won another two titles since that tweet, broken the all-time scoring record, has made nine All-NBA teams, is coming off one of the most efficient scoring seasons of his career and helped lead Team USA to a gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Maybe this won’t ever end.

The superlatives have long run out over the last nine years. If LeBron’s entire career consisted of only the 10 years since that tweet, he would be a Hall of Famer. And that would be the worse of the two halves of his career.

Common knowledge would tell us that, eventually, Father Time would catch LeBron. It is undefeated so far. But no one has put up the fight LeBron has.

Each season, the same questions are asked at this point in his career. Is this finally going to be the year Father Time gets its licks in? Can LeBron really keep winning this battle?

I certainly won’t be the one to bet against LeBron, especially with 20-plus years of evidence. And nothing recently has indicated he’s even close to moving to the losing side of that battle.

What is his best-case scenario?

For any other player on the team, this section is about them doing more, whether statistically or in a specific role.

But for LeBron, the best-case scenario is him doing less.

For years, the ideal scenario has been him taking a backseat role for most of the regular season, particularly early on. LeBron has spoken about him ramping up later in the season heading into the playoffs.

However, he hasn’t been afforded that luxury. Whether due to slow starts, injuries or poor roster construction, LeBron has, too often, had to shift into a higher gear much earlier in the season, leaving the tank near empty once the playoffs roll around.

This season, with a new coach and a roster with plenty of familiarity, affording LeBron time to take those random nights off and not have to play back-to-backs while still maintaining playoff positioning would be the best case.

How nice would it be to get to the All-Star break and the discussion be about when LeBron is going to start ramping up and not whether LeBron will have enough left for a playoff push?

On the court, JJ Redick has shared some ideas of how he wants to use LeBron. He wants him to shoot more 3-pointers after LeBron, which makes sense after he had a career year from range last season. Replicating something close to the 41% he shot last season would be ideal.

Going with the idea of doing less, Redick also wants him to play off the ball more. While he clarified that as not simply standing in the corner, having less ball-handling and creation responsibility would add up over the season and help keep the wear and tear down.

LeBron is still an elite player and one of the best in the world when he turns it on. The focus for the Lakers should be efficiency and asking LeBron to flip the switch in the early spring and not the middle of winter.

What is his worst-case scenario?

Well, it’s the elephant in the room that we talked about. Father Time has a lot of ways of striking.

Will it come in the way of LeBron losing a step and no longer being able to get downhill and to the rim? Will it be an injury, which LeBron has so impressively navigated around for much of his career?

There isn’t much more to it when looking at the worst-case scenario for LeBron. The baseline of what he’s going to bring over the course of the season is so high that a significant drop in statistical production doesn’t feel realistic at this point.

Eventually, I think, maybe, Father Time will win. But I’m growing less certain of that each time LeBron takes the court.

What is his most likely role on the team?

I’d like to say that his most likely role will be pretty close to the best-case scenario, at least in terms of rest. Every time LeBron pushes a little harder to get that mid-December win, my mind will think to the push he won’t have in April and May.

The primary goal of this season should be maximizing LeBron for the end of the season. But that’s only possible if the Lakers are winning games. It doesn’t do the Lakers any good to have a healthy LeBron playing in a 9-10 play-in game on the road.

As for any of the other expectations from Redick, I’m securely in a wait-and-see mode. I’d like a lot of them to happen, but everyone has grand ideas and hopes in the preseason.

LeBron is who he is. His dominance and excellence doesn’t have a ton of variability because it’s all-encompassing. Lakers fans are well aware of what that’ll look like at this point.

For now, I’ll sit back and enjoy LeBron in whatever role he’s in. Because, really this time, this won’t go on much longer.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.