Los Angeles Lakers: Three expectations for LeBron James in year one

1. A completely reinvented play style

LeBron James has always played in the point forward role, drawing serious comparisons to Magic Johnson. Even when James had elite guards such as Kyrie Irving or Dwayne Wade playing alongside him, James took the ball down the court and the offense ran through him.

James has as gifted of a basketball mind as we have ever seen and can take over a game by scoring or by playing distributor, making sure all of his teammates are eating.

And while we will see that from James next season during crunch time of close games, for the most part, we are going to see a completely different playing style than we are used to seeing from LeBron.

We partly saw this last year as the minutes started to add up and LeBron had to decide when and where to use his energy. Certain offensive and defensive possessions were designed for LeBron to “take off” due to his immense workload.

On the Lakers, he can simply sit out and let a promising talent, such as Kyle Kuzma, take over. However, James will be saving his energy by playing more off-ball and letting the two facilitators, Lonzo Ball and Rajon Rondo, do most of that heavy lifting.

There is a reason why the Lakers signed Rondo even though he lacks three-point shooting. James and company are looking for someone reliable to run the offense and allow James to play more off-ball, something he reportedly wanted to transition to later in his career.

We will still see LeBron amaze us all in transition and hit defenses with beautiful passing. However, we will also see James more on the low post and making plays happen off-ball.