With the NBA season being suspended, LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers is still working on his game.
As we now approach April, there is still no timetable for when the NBA will be back. Before the suspension, the Los Angeles Lakers were playing some of their best basketball of the season.
Wins against the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers helped solidify the Lakers as one of the best teams in the league. Unfortunately, that great weekend of basketball for the Lakers feels like a long time ago.
As we all wait for the NBA season to hopefully resume, players haven’t been allowed to be with their teammates. This will make things very interesting for when and if the league resumes, as it will be pretty clear which players were taking care of themselves and which were not.
For the Lakers, they know that LeBron James will always be in great shape and ready to go. Recently, Jason Kidd spoke with Sports Illustrated about LeBron working on his game despite the season being on hold. Here’s what Kidd had to say about LeBron working on one area of his game.
"“As you can see, his free throws right now, he’s gone back closer to his high school free throw and he’s shooting over 80 percent since he’s done that,” Kidd said. “He’s always searching to get better and is there a way to fix something. And that was probably one of the things in his game that he needed to work on.”"
Seeing James working on his free throw shooting is certainly an encouraging thing for the Lakers. While LeBron might be having an MVP caliber season, free throws have always been a bit of an issue for him.
So far this season, James is shooting it at 69.7 percent from the free-throw line, which while that is up from last year, is still below his career average. Come playoff time, hitting free throws is one of the most important things a team has to do to seal a victory.
Even though James is one of the best players in the league, it has been his teammate, Anthony Davis, who has done a lot of the clutch free-throw shooting late in games. Having a big man like Davis who can hit free throws is a huge luxury for the Lakers, as getting him the ball on an inbounds pass is fairly easy.
For James, working on his free throws now is a great way to try and improve his game. Even though his regular-season free throw numbers haven’t been great, it is worth noting that James shoots it at about a 75 percent clip in the playoffs. If the Lakers want to win a ring, this will be important for the team.