LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — In the most rigid routines, small deviations appear like gulfs.
LeBron James is a man of regimen. He likes to arrive on the first bus to the arena on game nights. He sleeps “more than anyone I know,” said Anthony Davis, with some players whispering that can be up to 15 hours in a day. He ices his knees and his feet — a timer goes off, as scripted to let him know exactly how many seconds he needs to spend wrapped in the cold.
Phil Handy knows the rigidity of James’ rhythms well: The Lakers assistant also worked with James for four years in Cleveland, each one of them a Finals run. This year he’s been the on-court coach who warms up the 35-year-old in his 17th season. If anyone would see the cracks in the system, it would be him — but Handy swears he doesn’t.
“His energy is so consistent,” Handy said. “Every time he steps on the court, I can’t remember a time I’ve looked at him and said, ‘He doesn’t have it tonight.’”
Of course James has had off nights in the NBA bubble — but three-quarters of the way through a playoff run, they’ve been the exception, not the rule. His Lakers are 12-3, cutting through the Blazers, Rockets and Nuggets and poised to win the franchise’s 17th title and his fourth if they can top the Miami Heat. A triumphant Game 5 to close out the Nuggets in the conference finals showed that James’ will to compete is still standing the test of time.
He’s scoring less than he did in his last postseason appearance two years ago, but shooting better and rebounding more. He’s not far off a triple-double average in postseason play (26.7 ppg, 10.3 rpg, 8.9 apg), even though he’s averaging a career-low 35 minutes per game. The Lakers have outscored opponents by 129 points when he’s on the floor.
It’s been a resurgence of the quasi-mythic “Playoff LeBron,” a strict, serious and focused competitor who thrives on fanatical discipline to routine. But how does one keep everything the same in the bubble, where in James’ own words, “nothing is normal”?
It’s a riddle with contradictory evidence. Most teammates would tell you little has changed, that James has the same approach he always has. But James himself has hinted how much the conditions of the bubble have bothered him in bits and pieces. During the seeding games, he deferred comment on “some things that you really can’t control that’s here, that I really don’t want to talk about that’s kinda like off the floor,” and after the late August stoppage, he joked he thought about leaving the bubble “once a day.”
A man who has made a career of trying to cover over his weak spots and intimidate and fluster opponents acknowledged on the eve of his 10th Finals series that playing through the bubble might rank up as his most difficult feat.
“It’s probably been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done as far as a professional, as far as committing to something and actually making it through,” he said. “I would be lying if I sat up here and knew that everything inside the bubble, the toll that it would take on your mind and your body and everything else, because it’s been extremely tough.”
While “Playoff LeBron” has been in many ways a similar character, winning games and similar ways and putting his body through similar routines, James has had to adapt — he’s found tweaks to his postseason rhythms to get the same results.
“His attention to detail is off the charts, to every series, every game,” Davis said. “He’s locked in as soon as he steps into the arena. Takes care of his body. He sleeps more than anybody I know. So those things, like the things he does now — he has all this recovery stuff shipped in and stuff like that, but it’s why he’s been so dominant for 17 years.”
James’ attention to his body has a certain mystique, especially given that he reportedly spends up to $1.5 million annually on training, recovery and diet. Several Lakers asked about equipment he shipped in said they didn’t know all of James’ tech — he did reveal himself on Instagram that one of the items he brought in was a hyperbaric chamber, meant to increase oxygen flow and possibly promote healing.
But so much of what James does is simply committing the hours. He blocks out his sleep, getting at least eight hours every night and strictly adhering to a pregame nap. J.R. Smith said at shootarounds, James tells teammates exactly when he’s going to bed and when he’ll wake up. When he gets to his hotel after games, he’ll work hours afterward with trainer Mike Mancias on treatment and therapy before bed.
It helped get James, who admitted in July he wasn’t where he wanted to be physically, into shape. Ferocious dunks and chase down blocks are back in his repertoire after a few early weeks of trying to get his legs back underneath him.
Teammates have seen shadows of this routine throughout the season and maybe catch him up late at the practice facility, Alex Caruso said, but in the bubble, they’ve gained more appreciation for how thorough James’ process really is. Davis said taking on some of James’ advice has helped him go from a player once notorious for his frequent trips to the locker room to playing one of the healthiest stretches of his career.
Even small things don’t get cut. Assistant coach Jason Kidd noted that in an arena without showers, many players are in a rush to get back to their hotel rooms. James takes the time to ice up. He saw it when they were teammates in the 2008 Olympics, but seeing the discipline over the course of a full year has given him more appreciation.
“Now as a coach, it’s just impressive, the detail of work he does and that he’s not bored,” he said. “You have to give him kudos for that, because it’s easy in this atmosphere to take shortcuts.”
That means film, too. James said he watched every minute of the playoffs last season, and he’s famously voracious. While he likes to end his nights by playing Madden and drinking a glass of wine, he also told Southern California News Group that film of opponents will run in the background.
“I’ve changed it up a lot, but this right here and my preparation has been the same,” he said. “I sit in my room, I watch the film, and sometimes it’s just sitting on the TV just on a loop.”
It seems that James has been grounded by these familiar game routines. But the social media blackout he’s had for some postgame runs was a non-starter, in part because of his More Than A Vote initiative that he wants to help promote: “I’ve got some (expletive) off the floor that I’m working on as well coming November, so I couldn’t afford to go quiet.”
Family is another issue. He told SCNG that not seeing his three children for the last three months has been “extreme,” and without FaceTime to see them, he would have doubts about the ability to make it through the bubble.
What has helped, he said, is living along the same hallway at the Gran Destino Hotel with his team. Wherever he’s gone, James has tried to build college-like culture. He describes his Miami years, when he played for the Heat between 25 and 29, as his “college,” which taught him how to win and build camaraderie. Subsequent efforts have not always succeeded, but this 2019-20 has that build.
“We’re together more than we’re with our families. … Who else you gonna be with?” he said. “And if it’s not organic, then it’s gonna feel forced. Our team, we love being around each other. It’s crazy.”
During the regular season, the Lakers were close off the court, whether going to JaVale McGee’s ugly sweater party, or donning suits for James’ 35th birthday, or renting out the back room of a New York restaurant in January. The darker side of this bond came through a collective trauma: learning that Kobe Bryant had died during a cross-country flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. That event and the difficult weeks and months that followed bound the teammates closer, as they shared tearful stories about Bryant and locked arms in an emotional return to Staples Center.
On the bubble campus, the close quarters created a dorm-like environment that James helped fill by organizing a Madden video game tournament. The Lakers have pizza or pool parties on the occasional off-day. They sometimes watch games together. After the Western Conference Finals win on Saturday, they threw a party at the Three Bridges Restaurant that carried past 4 a.m.
“This is probably the tightest group I’ve ever seen in this short of a span,” said Smith, a veteran of James’ Cavalier teams who joined the Lakers just in June. “Obviously the bubble takes into it, but we’ve got a lot of veteran guys who have either been there before or trying to get it done. And it just makes it that much easier with the personalities we’ve got. Everyone knows what they’re here for, everyone’s easygoing.”
James is not there for all the team activities — Smith said he went golfing twice with the group, and it rained both times. But the underlying sense of camaraderie has been motivating, too, giving him a reason to stick with the regimen that’s helped him be this successful for so long.There’s a certain trickle-down effect that James’ mood can influence his locker room. The greatest feat Handy has seen is that whatever anxieties and struggles James might be having in the bubble, when he goes into practice, when he goes to the court, or when he lines up for tip-off, he still doesn’t see the fissures.
He simply sees LeBron James, ready to work.
“Whatever challenges, you never hear about it, you don’t talk about it, he doesn’t use them as excuses,” Handy said. “Everybody who is in here is dealing with some challenge. He knows that, and he sets the table for us to have success.”
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