As the Los Angeles Lakers (15–5) begin a demanding three-game East Coast road trip Thursday against the Toronto Raptors (15–7), ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said LeBron James has entered the “deep end” of an unfamiliar role in Year 23 — one shaped by injuries, roster shifts and the rapid rise of Austin Reaves.

Windhorst discussed James’ new reality on The Dan Patrick Show, noting how drastically things have changed for the 40-year-old forward.

“The Luka thing happens then he has the injuries. So this is two things we’ve never seen. We’ve never seen him not be the 1A guy on his team. We’ve never seen him have offseason injuries before. Then his team, without him, plays really, really well. Absolutely never happened.”

He emphasized that even one of these elements would be unprecedented fo

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