LeBron James is playing at an amazing level approaching his 39th birthday. His younger teammates decidedly are not.

the lakers have the net rating of a 67 win team when lebron is on the court, and the net rating of a 1 win team when he sits. i….don’t think i’ve ever seen this before pic.twitter.com/dyp5X9HOOj

— Steve Jail (@Biyombonesaw) November 8, 2023

According to statistics from the site Cleaning The Glass, the Lakers are outscoring their opponents badly when James is on the court. A team that kept that scoring advantage for a whole season could expect to win 67 games, which would tie for the eighth-highest win total in NBA history. Teams with 67 wins include the Golden State Warriors’ title teams in 2015 and 2017, the 1986 Boston Celtics and James’ own 2012-13 Miami Heat.

For the 35.9 minutes per game James is on the floor, the Lakers are a historically-good team. But when James sits, it all falls apart. In the other 12.1 minutes of the Lakers’ games this season, they have the net rating of a one-win team. For 82 games, the no-LeBron Lakers would be expected to go 1-81.

LeBron James is averaging 35.9 minutes per gameWith him, the Lakers’ offensive rating is 116.7, without him, it drops to 91.2. Opponents score at 107.0 with him on the court and 127.8 with him off, making a +46.2 differentialThe impact in Year 21 is INSANE pic.twitter.com/AFSDl5bTJF

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) November 7, 2023

While James has been excellent, averaging 25.3 points on 56.1 percent shooting, the rest of the team struggles without him. Some of that is due to the struggles of new additions to the Lake Show.

Former Heat guard Gabe Vincent is shooting 7.1 percent from three-point range. He’s playing over 28 minutes a game and averaging six points. 24-year-old journeyman Cam Reddish is averaging four points a game in nearly 20 minutes. D’Angelo Russell is scoring 17.3 points per game, but making only 27.9 percent of his three-pointers and getting torched on defense, putting up the worst defensive rating of all Lakers rotation players.

In a year where the Lakers wanted to limit James to 30 minutes per game, coach Darvin Ham simply can’t afford to rest his star. They’ve needed huge minutes from James simply to get to 3-4. With Anthony Davis suffering an injury Monday night, the Lakers may have to lean even harder on James.

Lakers star Anthony Davis had a spasm of his groin and is attempting to see if he can return for second half vs. Heat, per sources.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 7, 2023

While this injury may not be serious, there’s a growing list of banged-up Lakers, including Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt and rookie Jalen Hood-Schifino. James is awesome, but he’s also missed at least 25 games each of the last three seasons. Los Angeles needs to figure out how to win in the minutes when James sits – because history tells us he’s likely to sit all 48 minutes for long stretches eventually.