When LeBron James was a rookie and a spring-legged 18-year-old, he didn't always tape his ankles when playing. After games, he was often out of the locker room and into the night within a few minutes. Pizza and Fruity Pebbles were cornerstones of his diet.
That version of James wouldn't recognize the modern incarnation. James' life off the basketball floor these days is an endless journey of body maintenance and injury prevention, from massages to expansive stretching routines to high-tech recovery devices that use liquid nitrogen. He goes on sugar-free diets and after games more routinely eats sushi and guzzles recovery drinks. But that is only after going through a standard long ice down of his ankles, knees and back.
James' metamorphosis in this area was born out of a combination of necessity and foresight. Father time is undefeated, of course, and James watched and learned from older teammates. He also saw the landscape and how science was allowing training to evolve.
This has been a theme in James' career. He has been adaptive to the need to improve as a shooter, to transition to being able to play "positionless" as the game has gotten faster and smaller, to adjust as the league has started to bow to efficiency.
As James enters his 13th season and nears his 31st birthday, the time has come again for another transformation. This one, however, promises to be a little more challenging, because it is going to require James to fight his own nature. If he is going to continue at this hellacious pace -- and make no mistake, it's been the most grueling run in the history of the NBA -- change again will be needed.
He's going to have to start trusting his teammates, and he's going to have to start trusting his coach. It is a necessity, because he must ease the burden. He cannot go on trying to do as much as he did during his return to the Cavaliers in the 2014-15 season or it could break him.
He will not last replaying last season out again and again. And he knows it. This is not news to James. Over the summer, he came to this understanding on his own as he reflected on the Finals defeat.
"I'm very hardheaded, I am," James said. "But I think what we have, I don't need to be as hardheaded."
A year ago, he exhausted his body and spirit trying to tug the team to a title. At times the strain made it seem like he was dragging a refrigerator up a flight of a stairs by himself. It was the most draining season of James' career, zapping him to such a degree that by the end he was perhaps a little addled.
"I asked myself last year during the postseason whether I'd even rather not make the playoffs and than lose in the Finals," James said. "That's a very valid question.
"It's like you get all the way there and then you lose. I'd like to have those two months back; I could've been somewhere laying out, helping my body get better."
James confronted this consideration out of pure fatigue. Of course he would not make that trade, but the fact he considered it is a reflection of the toll it took on him.
This is multifaceted. It's not just on the basic level, which is reducing minutes. Everyone knows James needs to reduce minutes. Actually, he needs to reduce whole games. Over the past five years, James has played in 107 games in the playoffs alone, the most over any five-year stretch in NBA history..
Larry Bird played 101 playoff games from 1984-88. From 1989-1993, Michael Jordan played in 91. From 2000-2004, Kobe Bryant played in 91. When Bill Russell won 11 titles, he never played past the first week of May.
So yes, James could use more rest. But that is just part of it. It's just as much about sharing the load throughout the journey and letting some of his younger and talented teammates take more of it, even if they have to do some failing in the process. It's about using the regular season to identify what can be relied on and what cannot.
James has always been able to rely on himself. This is at the heart of his reasoning when he says things like, "no team I'm on is ever an underdog," as he did before last season's Finals. Or in 2014, when the Miami Heat were down 3-1 to the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals and James was averaging 28 points and shooting 60 percent from the field but said, "I've been telling myself I need to do more. Is it too much to ask myself? I don't know. I don't know."
The answer to that question might finally be yes. To get where he wants to go, James might have to do less.
"LeBron understands that he can carry this team. But in the interest of growth and what's best for the team, it's for him to share that load, because when it comes to playoff time, each game is its own individual story." James Jones
It's as elemental as being a part of more ball movement and less individual dribbling -- this is the way the league is going anyway, and, on this one, James has been behind the curve at times -- to more complex projects, such as fostering confidence in Kevin Love instead of instructing him to wait in the corner to receive a pass. It also includes being more supportive of Cavaliers coach David Blatt.
James did what he felt was necessary last season, whether it was showing Kyrie Irving tough love early in the season or imposing his will on everything from situational play calling to unilateral position switches.
At times Blatt was involved, and at times he wasn't, an adjustment he made as he allowed James space and tried to work in the margins. Quite often, James' instincts were correct. On balance, the ends justified the means. But there was a cost, one that only those in the locker room every day and in the huddle every time out could truly explain.
It was an inefficient machine. The Cavs achieved and might have even hung a banner had they not been devastated with injuries in the Finals. But the longevity of such methods is questionable at best. It works better when the best player and coach are in a partnership, a tenet James knows well, even if it is a tenuous relationship.
Doing it for the first time with that young and inexperienced team, a hammer was perhaps a needed tool. But doing it the way James did it didn't just leave scars, it required an endless energy stream that simply could not be kept up. Blatt picks his spots but has seen hints of James attempting to make some adjustments as he moves into the new season.
"He's been a pretty good player for a long time in our league doing things a certain way," Blatt said. "And his game is always evolving, as do most experienced players and veteran players."
For the time being, much of this project seems to involve Love. Starting last summer, when they met to discuss free agency, James took chances to buttress Love and emphasize how Love's role would be expanding this season. When Irving returns from a knee injury, James has hinted this would perhaps extend to the point guard, as well.
Intentions in October are one thing, and execution during the season is another, but teammates have noticed James is making an attempt to alter his approach with the long haul in mind.
"LeBron understands that he can carry this team," said James Jones, a teammate of James' for the past five seasons in Miami and Cleveland. "But in the interest of growth and what's best for the team, it's for him to share that load, because when it comes to playoff time, each game is its own individual story.
"I think, like all great players, he understands there has to be an adaptation if you want to be able to pursue excellence and championships well into your 30s. If you just want to throw caution to the wind and exhaust yourself and burn out, you can do that. Or if you want, like all the greats -- Tim Duncan, guys like that -- they find ways to maintain their game. ... At the end of the day, as long as there's a W in the win column, however you get it is the most important thing, and I think he understands that now."
A certain amount of the success James has experienced in his career is tied closely to discipline; he has been able to create plans and stick to them. This demand, to loosen the reins in order to make those around him stronger, will test him. It is not something he wants to do, it is something he has to do. And he is promising that he's going to try.
"I can lead this team, but I don't have to carry it," James said. "We have enough guys that will all help. It's not about carrying the team. Last year at the start of the season, I don't think people saw the vision and didn't understand the process. I think guys do now."
ESPN's Dave McMenamin contributed to this article.