How are we doing?

Perk.

Always good to see you.

Um, I'll get to you in a minute, sir.

I'm gonna start with Max Kellerman.

Max, what do you think?

Should the Lakers be worried?

Because it's pretty early for him to be playing these type of minutes.

First of all, perk.

Why don't you smile with your whole face?

That smile look like the hardest thing anyone had to dio.

Let me see.

You smile.

It was like a scowl.

Smile.

Can't you ever come out here and be happy?

Happy to see your boys?

Don't play it off like you're not happy to see me.

Knock it off.

That's the first thing.

Look at that second thing.

Is this the LeBron James?

There it is.

There it is.

The LeBron James situation is a lot as a bunch of overlapping issues.

The answer is yes, they should rest him more.

But let me tell you why.

There are a bunch of reasons.

Number one.

It's his effectiveness as he plays.

Right now, it's gone down a little bit as his minute load has increased, which is the case with a lot of players, particularly a guy in his 18th season who no one's ever had.

The status of LeBron in terms of where he ranks among the elite players this many minutes and this many miles into their embassies in every time he takes the floor.

He's setting a new record, breaking his own record, so we don't know how that aging process is gonna go or what to expect.

But we do know that if you play a dude a ton of minutes, usually it can fatigue him.

And LeBron's effectiveness recently has gone down a little bit.

Not a whole lot is still a great.

Of course, he's LeBron James a little bit.

The second thing is this.

Lakers got their eyes on the prize and boy, they better.

They better hope a D comes back and healthy, and that's gonna be a whole lot of to get by that Nets team.

If that team really starts playing defense the way they've been playing, they're gonna need LeBron at his very best.

What he learned in Miami after Miami going to Cleveland is I can't play both ends of the floor like I did in Miami and get to the finals every year as I get older and still be just as effective.

So he learned how to manage that a little bit and then a d challenge them to beam or intense on the defensive end.

And he did.

But again, this is all happening.

The greater intensity on the defensive end, then in Cleveland from an earlier point in the season, the more minutes in everything at an unprecedented old age in terms of the number of minutes he's played in the MBA.

So there's that effectiveness now and effectiveness toe win a championship, which is the point.

And then, thirdly, and Stephen A.

We wanna latch onto.

There's only one of the three reasons, Of course, you're concerned about injury at his age, given the number of miles he's played, given the pounding he takes, given the physical freak that he is off course.

The more minutes you play, the more apt you are to wind up with an injury.

And hopefully not.

But it's possible.

Catastrophic won all three of those reasons.

Tell me I know ideas out the temptation playing more minutes.

I think the Lakers should pull back a little.

I tell you something You know, I've been very, very blessed, Uh, in my career, obviously, you know, I've signed on and, you know, signed on with ESPN for years to come.

And I'm very, very happy about that.

I'm living quite well.

But every time I listen to you talk particularly about an athlete, um, that has been around for a while.

And how age and attrition and reasons for concern in their injuries.

I look at ESPN and I just want to say to the bosses, I think I should get paid more just for having to listen to you in this drivel.

It makes no sense whatsoever.

I mean, this is your the guy.

As I told at Perk, I told him at the top of the show, you know, four years ago because he started on July 25th, 2000 and 16, and he set up there and said that Tom Brady would be done.

He's gonna fall over a cliff and whatever Tom Brady proceeds to go to four Super Bowls over the next five years and win three of them.

Okay?

And it took about that long for Max to admit that he was wrong or right before the Super Bowl.

And now here we are talking about LeBron James.

LeBron James is 36 years of age.

He is in his 18th season in the league, but it's Dennis shoot.

It has hurt, and it's Anthony Davis does hurt LeBron a miss game.

LeBron came into the season complaining about the short window that they had before restarting the next season after finishing the bubble in October and still has not missed a game.

Okay, I think Steph Curry has missed games.

I think Russell Westbrook has missed games.

I think C J.

McCollum clearly has missed games.

Nurkic has missed games.

Stars throughout the league have missed games except LeBron James LeBron James, 18 years, 36 years of age, who's known for spending more than a million dollars on his body.

And we see why I'm trying to figure out why the hell anybody else duplicating what he's doing.

I want to know the damn formula.

I don't have that money, but damn it, I want I want to know what he's doing, so I could at least invest something.

I mean, my God, this is if there's ever a person to listen.

Thio when it comes to their body.

What level of fatigue might be, you know, might be injected into the equation or lack thereof.

It would be him.

Now, if you want to point to something point to the 63% shooting for the free throw line point to the 16th, it's over.

The last six games point to the 16% shooting from three point range over the last six games.

Point to that.

I'm with you, but I'm not concerned about LeBron's fatigue.

I'm not concerned about him getting tired or anything like that.

You know why I'm not concerned?

Because LeBron James told me.

Don't worry about it, that's why.

And he has a resume that says what?

Let him worry about it because he knows his body better than most, and he takes care of his body practically better than anybody.

I think he deserves that respect and he deserves all of us standing the hell down and saying defer to him.

If he needs rest, he'll let us know.

He did it with the pair after he took the paleo diet years ago and he needed a couple of years to leave and departs for South Beach or whatever the hell he went for a couple of weeks because that diet had messed with him.

See, he took that time off because he recognized Yo, I'm not feeling right.

It's the only time he had ever done that in his career.

Okay, so let's listen to him and defer to him.

He would know, and he has the credentials that proves he can be trusted to do just that.

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