Cavaliers coach David Blatt already has said he absolutely expects LeBron James to play in the Cavaliers’ opening game Tuesday in Chicago (Wednesday AEDT).
Advertisement
“When they say rest, it’s not like I’ve been sitting on my ass for a week and a half because I haven’t”, James said, speaking of the break he took this month. When I’m not, I’ll quit.
James and the Cavaliers open the regular season on Tuesday on the road against the Chicago Bulls.
After battling injuries on the way to losing 4-2 in the finals against the Golden State Warriors last season, many believe that LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving can deliver a first title to Cleveland in the trio’s second year together. Griffin said that LeBron would need a little more strength work and avoid overexertion to be fully fit for the regular season, which will last upto mid-2016, and even longer if (very likely) Cleveland make the playoffs.
MINUTE BY MINUTE: James has logged almost 44,000 minutes during his NBA career, and that number doesn’t include his long hours on the practice floor or summers spent with the USA national team.
“I haven’t got to this point by cheating the game”, James said.
“For me growing up, and a lot of kids grow up in the situation I grew up in…it wasn’t a reality, we just didn’t feel like it was possible”, James said.
The 30-year-old James received a similar shot early last season, when he was slowed by back pain and a strained left knee.
James has only been able to play in two games this preseason, due to a battle with back soreness. James received an anti-inflammatory shot in his back October. 13.
While James is in impeccable shape – Griffin said “radically” better than a year ago – and believes he’s ready to practice and play, the Cavs are being overly cautious with their franchise player.
“It’s for me not to go out and prove it to myself and not to nobody else that I’m capable of doing the things that I’m accustomed to doing”, James said. “We just want him to get better every day and he has been and he’s been progressing and feeling like we’d like him to feel”.
Although there are plenty of teams that think they have a legitimate path toward getting into the Eastern Conference playoff race, it’s James and the Cavaliers that look like the unquestioned favorites to represent that side of the league in the Finals again next spring.
Advertisement
“We love this man because of the man that he is, not because of the athlete he is”, she said. “But I think the greatest thing about MJ was that he never was afraid to fail”.
