Robert Parish Livid Over Load Management, Wants Players to ‘Take a Page’ Out of LeBron James’ Book

The concept of load management has become a major issue in the league over the last few years. Healthy players sitting out games for precautionary reasons has not been received well by former players, who always played their hearts out throughout the 82-game season. During a conversation on SiriusXM NBA Radio, NBA legend Robert Parish bashed the recent trend in the league.

He believes that athletes should learn from LeBron James how to condition their bodies to last an entire season and a postseason after that. Poor conditioning causes injuries, not playing games. Therefore, Parish believes that players should focus on conditioning their bodies instead of blaming it all on the number of games.

Parish also lashed out at players for not taking their fitness and conditioning seriously. He believes that most players nowadays have a casual approach toward their health. He said, “First of all, I find it insulting. First and foremost, your main and most significant priority should be fitness and conditioning.”

Parish heaped praise on King James for being one of the most dedicated players in the game, stating that he should be an example for everyone else.

The 71-year-old said, “That’s one of the things that I admire about LeBron James. Forget about his longevity, his high level of playing. I like the fact that he takes his body, his work ethic, his offseason fitness dead serious, and that’s the way all the other players should take it.”

“Everybody in the NBA needs to take a page out of LeBron’s book in terms of fitness and conditioning,” the Celtics legend added.

As per the four-time NBA Champion, playing as many games as possible should be something that the players take pride in. He recalled his generation’s relentless pursuit to stay healthy throughout the season.

Parish played 80 or more games in nine seasons of his career, two of them being a full 82-game stint. However, that didn’t slow him down in the postseason. Parish still has four NBA rings to flaunt and so does LeBron James.

In his 21-year-long career, LeBron has played 1611 games, the most in NBA history. While he has also been accused of load management in the past, in the 2023-24 season, LBJ played 71 games for the Lakers. Even at the age of 39, he is extremely healthy and always stays prepared to play as many games as possible.

Whereas players like Joel Embiid are already showing signs of slowing down.

Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley call out Joel Embiid

When the dynamic broadcasting duo started another season of Inside the NBA with Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith today, they had some things to address. Barkley brought up the topic of Embiid stating that he will most likely be unavailable for back-to-back games this season.

Chuck said, “You’re one of the best players in the world, you cannot say, as the leader of that team, ‘I’m not going to play certain games.’ That’s not the way to start the season.”

Shaq echoed the same sentiment and said that backing out of major commitments before the season starts doesn’t make sense to him.

“It doesn’t make sense, the league isn’t that physical for him to say that.” In his opinion, Embiid’s style of play doesn’t put a lot of pressure on his physique, so, for him to say that he will not participate in back-to-back games is ridiculous.