LeBron James is going to take some plays off. Sure, he’ll still give the Lakers an efficient 28/9/8, but there are going to be possessions on the defensive end where he doesn’t even pretend to care, especially in October. That’s part of the deal with an older superstar.
In exchange, the Lakers were supposed to be getting a closer who could assert his will down the stretch of close games, leading them to victory. It hasn’t worked out that way so far in the 2018-19 season, with the Lakers winning just one of their six competitive contests, as Jimmy Butler, James Harden, DeMar DeRozan, and Damian Lillard finished them off.