Manage LeBron James shows up in plays every night.

He played 82 games his last year in Cleveland.

So through all of the resting that I detest around the sport, LeBron has not been a part of that.

But let's just be realistic about the circumstances for a minute.

It was a 71 day turnaround from winning the championship in the bubble to starting this season, and he is playing now without Anthony Davis.

He is going to be asked at the age of 36 to carry probably a disproportionate amount of load going forward.

So the question is, is it reasonable or not reasonable to ask LeBron James to go over and above what we even already expect from him based upon the circumstances at his age?

And in order to answer that question, I will tell you who would have absolutely said he needs to play Phil Jackson.

I started covering the Bulls in the early nineties, and when Michael Jordan went off to play baseball, that left Scottie Pippen is the best player on the Chicago Bulls in the 93 94 n b a season, and I have said many times having covered that team day in and day out.

Scottie Pippen should absolutely have been the M V p of the league that year.

He had a magnificent season, and there was a day after a practice the Bulls used to practice in a place called the Berto Center in Northbrook, Illinois, northern suburbs of Chicago.

And I was there every single day.

And after a practice when Scottie Pippen that season was playing out of his mind and he was guarding the other team's best player every single night, I asked Phil Jackson, Is it reasonable?

I don't know that I use the word reasonable, but something along the lines of Is it reasonable?

Or are we asking too much of Scotty here to be carrying as much of the load offensively as he is and to be covering the other team's best player every single day?

In all the years I covered Phil, that was the only time he ever got mad at a question I asked.

Phil was not one to get mad, and largely it was because he knew he was so much smarter than you were when you asked the question that generally there was nothing you could say that would upset him.

It wasn't important enough to him under any circumstances.

And I say that with nothing but respect.

I have always loved Phil and I always will.

But he got mad and he looked right.

He looked me right in the face, was sort of an angry look and he said, That's his job and I've never forgotten that moment.

At the end of the day, what Phil was saying to me, Waas, you want to be Scottie Pippen?

Then you're going to score all of our points and you're going to guard the other team's best player.

That's your job.

If you don't want to do that job, then you could be one of these other guys over here was not going to the Hall of Fame was not one of the 50 greatest of all time was not gonna be showing up at banquets and all this kind of stuff.

60 years after he retires.

You want to be a legend, that's what you do.

And so I guess that's kind of the answer here.

I don't know that there was any other option.

If you're LeBron James and you're part of a dynamic duo with Anthony Davis and Anthony Davis goes down, it is your job to carry the weight until he comes back.

That's his lot in life.

There were a lot of great things that come from being LeBron James.

It also comes with a lot of expectation and pressure, and again, I'm not.

This is if this sounds critical, because I'm saying it in the tone.

I'm saying it, he's not talking about it.

I'm talking to all the people who are telling him, Toe load, manage.

That's who has me aggravated today.

LeBron James is healthy.

He should play.

That's what basketball players do.

Straight talk wireless.

No contract, no compromise.

Now this is about to get very confusing and maybe mawr complicated because I have sneaky big news.

Sneaky big news, and it comes from Brian Wynne Horses Hoop, collective podcast.

If you like basketball, you should be listening toe Windies podcast.

It is called the Hoop Collective, and he said on his podcast the other day that MBA players are bracing.

That is the word he used to describe it bracing, but what the schedule is gonna look like for the second half of the season, talking to some teams, they are bracing themselves for the worst schedule they've ever seen.

All kinds of five games and seven nights, all kinds of strange road trips.

You're playing East and West in the same road trip.

When that schedule comes out way, do you hear the griping?

I think there's gonna be a lot of games and and this is gonna go for every team.

We're just gonna have to rest guys like it's not even gonna be guys who have injuries.

You're just gonna have to use gonna look at them and go.

We've just played our second five and seven game stretch in this month and we gotta get this guy down here and there.

So that is what this is about to all look like.

And it means to me, and I understand it.

Okay, in a pandemic, there are always more questions than answers, and I am one who is going to be very hesitant in any circumstance to seriously question the decisions that are being made by leaders in any industry, particularly sports, because that's my area of expertise during the pandemic.

So I totally get that they're feeling is we got to get all these games in however we can.

That was the envy.

The NFL's philosophy, right?

How many times do we say it here over the course of the football season?

The first priority is not fairness.

It's just getting the games in.

But I do think that at some point the question is worthy of raising.

Is it realistic to get all these games in the second half of the season?

Is it worth it?

Of all these guys were not going to play if we're gonna have a love these compromised games, I very carefully thought about what word I would choose to use their all these games that are being compromised because LeBron James, who doesn't want a load manage, isn't gonna play his fifth game in seven days at the age of 36.

And we all know how the MBA works.

These guys don't play those games anyway.

I wonder if someone needs to be saying you know what, I know what's taking a loss.

I know we've taken financial hits because of this pandemic last year and We don't want to take any more if we can avoid it.

But I do wonder if for the best interest of the game in the big picture, they need to consider not playing that many games.

If that's what the Schedule is gonna look like and it means these guys, all the players you want to see aren't playing so many of these games.

I wonder if, in the end that juice is worth the squeeze.

I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.

I will not be critical of either way.

They decide to go because these are people who are making decisions I can't fathom and it's way above my head might have my ability to understand and they're dealing.

They have data in front of them that I'll never see.

So I will not be critical.

But I hope someone is at least raising that point.

If this is gonna mean half the n B A is load managing half our games, we need to consider playing fewer games.

I assume that conversation has been had.

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