Seeing a little less of LeBron James on the court would be a good thing for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The four-time MVP logged 29:01 in Tuesday's 119-107 loss to the Denver Nuggets, which was the lowest minutes total of anybody in the Lakers' starting lineup. After the game, head coach Darvin Ham said that was by design.

"It's easy with him to get caught up in the emotion of the game and you tend to forget you want to play these long stretches, but in order for him to be as effective as possible, we have to be mindful of the minute output and how long his stretches are," he told reporters.

For his part, James indicated he's on board with the approach.

"Listen, I mean, I always want to be on the floor," he said. "Especially when you got an opportunity to win a game or you feel like you can make an impact. But this is the system in place and I'm going to follow it."

It was probably tough for Ham to resist the urge to abandon his plan and lean heavily on James to help overturn a 14-point deficit after the first quarter. The 38-year-old was certainly effective, finishing with 21 points on 10-of-16 shooting along with eight rebounds, five assists and one steal. Los Angeles was also plus-seven with him on the floor.

Managing LeBron's workload is a necessary step for the Lakers to achieve their lofty ambitions; whether Ham follows through is another matter because we've been down this road before.

As far back as at least the 2015-16 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers were looking to curtail James' usage a bit. His 35.6 minutes per game were a career low, but he proceeded to lead the NBA in minutes in each of the next two years.

In LeBron's first year with the Lakers, then-president of basketball operations Magic Johnson said they were "trying to make sure that we watch his minutes but also that we don't run everything through him because now it is Cleveland all over again and we don't want that."

James has played 35.2 minutes per game in purple and gold, and his 32.1 percent usage rate with L.A. is slightly higher than his career average (31.6), per Basketball Reference.

Sooner or later, this needs to actually happen, and there's no time like the present.

James' mortality has been laid bare over the last few seasons. The minor injuries have added up to the tune of 111 missed games since signing with the Lakers. In Los Angeles' two playoff runs after winning a title in 2019-29, he has been unable to put the team on his back in the way fans have come to expect, too.

Between the 2021 and 2023 playoffs, the 6'9" forward averaged 24.2 points, 9.1 rebounds and 6.9 assists while shooting 49.1 percent from the field and 29.9 percent from beyond the arc. For nearly every other player, that's excellent production; in James' case, it's below the norm.

And by the time the Lakers exited in the Western Conference Finals, James was so spent physically and emotionally he sounded conflicted about committing to Year 21 in the NBA.

Nobody is reaching for the panic button, but Tuesday's defeat was a reminder of where L.A. stands in the West within a regular-season context. It's not at the Nuggets' level, and finishing in the top four is no guarantee.

The postseason could be a different story if James regains his singular brilliance because he's still a player almost without equal in the NBA. Lowering his playing time in the regular season, even at the cost of a win here and there, is a strategy to make sure that can happen.