JaVale McGee is finally getting a heavy dose of minutes as the starting center for the Los Angeles Lakers, but most pundits still insist he's only bound for 20-some minutes due to his known asthma condition.

The 30-year-old finally put those rumors to rest on Friday night after dropping a 20-point gem in the team's first win of the season, a 131-113 victory against the Phoenix Suns.

“This is what I want to say about the asthma,” McGee said when asked about it after the game, according to ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk. “Stop bringing that up like I'm out here wheezing and having asthma attacks. I've never had an asthma attack in my life. I feel like that's definitely lowered my value as a basketball player.

“People say, ‘Oh he only can play 20 minutes because he has asthma.' No. there's a lot of people with asthma in the league. I feel like somebody stamped that excuse on me like, ‘Cool, we can play him low minutes because he has asthma.'”

McGee had the best efficiency numbers of his pro career during his two years with the Golden State Warriors, making the most of his short spurts to wreak havoc on the defensive end and finish at the rim thanks to the willingly parabolic lobs from Draymond Green.

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McGee has carried a similar efficiency with the Lakers in even bigger minutes, having scored in double digits in seven of his last 10 games, dating back to the preseason.

McGee has not averaged more than 18.1 minutes per game in his six previous seasons, but when asked where the talk of his asthma originated, he pointed to his time with the Denver Nuggets from 2012-15.

“Probably Denver because of altitude,” said the 7-footer. “Anybody has a problem breathing in Denver.”

“They have asthma medicine. There's a reason I take it, so I don't have asthma when I take my asthma medicine.”

Despite his comments, the Lakers have seen that McGee is better when deployed in bursts, allowing him to run the floor to his heart's content and exploit the defense's woes with a combination of speed and athleticism.