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LeBron James explained how moving to the West coast led to his slow start with the Lakers

Even the best player in the world can be affected by off-court factors, which helps explain why LeBron James is seemingly just starting to hit his stride with the Lakers.

NBA: Portland Trail Blazers at Los Angeles Lakers Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

LeBron James has been as good as advertised for the Los Angeles Lakers, however, he didn’t start the season off looking as dominant as he has recently, and it might have been because he was settling into his new surroundings.

James has lived in L.A. during the summer for years now, like many NBA players do, but he told Dave McMenamin of ESPN that the permanent move from the West Coast has taken some getting used to:

“I spent 33 years of my life on the East Coast, so going to the West Coast, everything changes. Even though it is just three hours, everything has changed for me drastically,” James said, explaining how the move affected his game. “When you live on the east side of the country for so long, I think for me, it’s taken me a little while to get adjusted, with my game, moving, the family, everything. We are all figuring things out.”

There’s always been this narrative that James would struggle if he played in the Western Conference, but because of the number of elite teams in West, not the time change. That adjustment period has seemingly ended for James though, as he’s looked like an MVP candidate again as of late.

Over his last 7 games, James has averaged 30 points on 54.3 percent shooting from the field and 53.2 percent shooting from behind the 3-point line.

Here is a list of players averaging at least 30 points while shooting at least 50 percent from both the field and 3-point land during that span:

1. LeBron James

That’s it. That’s the list.

James is also averaging 7 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.1 blocks per game over his past seven contests. Only Anthony Davis has averaged at least 30 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists and 1 block per game since then. Davis is almost nine years younger than James and is averaging two more minutes per game. LeBron is pretty good at this basketball thing, I think.

If James can sustain this level of play throughout the majority of the regular season, the Lakers will be in a great position to end their six-year championship “drought.” Now that he’s adjusted to the time difference and gotten his family settled, his strong play continuing is probably a safe bet.

You can follow this author on Twitter at @RadRivas.

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