LeBron James still appears to be at the peak of his powers after 19 years in the NBA, but even he admits that he’s always looking for ways to improve.
In fact, he already has one primary goal for next season: trick the officials.
During his exit interview on Monday following a dismal Lakers season, James revealed that he wants to prioritize getting to the free throw line more. To do so, he joked that he might need to deceive the referees working his games.
“Yeah, I want to get to the free throw line. So I wanna figure out how to trick the refs,” James said before giving a slight smile.
The 37-year-old forward continued along with his amusing answer about the officials, but also explained that he often doesn’t see his name among the league’s other stars in free throw attempts per game.
“I want to figure it out. I need to figure it out. I see too many stats about points in the paint, and things of that nature, and I’m up there near thee top of the leaderboard… but I’m in like the bottom tier of free throws per game,” James explained. “So, I gotta figure it out.”
He added that he used to be among the league’s leaders in free throw attempts, which is true. In three different seasons during his first stint with the Cavaliers, James averaged more than 10 shots from the line per game.
This past season, he averaged 6.0 free throw attempts per contest, ranking 18th in the NBA.
Although the Lakers missed out on the Western Conference play-in tournament with a 33–49 record, James was brilliant in many other aspects of the game this season. He averaged 30.3 points, 8.2 rebounds and 6.2 assists while shooting 52.4% from the floor and 35.9% from beyond the arc in 56 games played.
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