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Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron James Will Have Minutes Scaled Back In 2016-17

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue is expected to have LeBron James’ regular season minutes scaled back a bit in 2016-17

The Cleveland Cavaliers plan on implementing a blueprint to scale back the minutes for LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love during the 2016-17 regular season.

At least that’s the pre-season plan. That, of course, could change rather quickly. Especially if the Cavs don’t get off to a quick start.

For now, though, it looks like LeBron, Kyrie and Love will see their minutes monitored early in the season, which is actually quite smart. For what the Cavs want to accomplish this season, the regular season doesn’t hold much, if any, weight in comparison to what the postseason does.

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The biggest issue with this entire plan to limit LeBron and company’s minutes, though, is the fact that the Cavs don’t exactly have the deepest team. Beyond their starters, the Cavs only have a handful of NBA players with extended experience – Mike Dunleavy, Channing Frye and Chris Andersen (if he can still play).

And if the Cavs elect not to re-sign J.R. Smith or insurance behind Kyrie Irving, it becomes even more difficult to hand the keys to the bench to rookie and second-year players.

I suppose this is where losing guys like Timofey Mozgov and Matthew Dellavedova really hurts the Cleveland Cavaliers. Even though Mozgov and Delly didn’t exactly play huge roles for the Cavs last season, they gave the team options – and the opportunity to let Kyrie and LeBron rest.

Without them, they might not have the same opportunity. Either that, or they’re going to have to trust players like Jordan McRae and Kay Felder – players who aren’t “bad”, but are just extremely inexperienced.

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