LOS ANGELES — Lakers star LeBron James made his historic season debut during Tuesday night’s home game against the Utah Jazz.

James, who is beginning an unprecedented 23rd NBA season, was upgraded from questionable to available 45 minutes before tipoff Tuesday night after sitting out of the Lakers’ first 14 games because of sciatica.

The four-time league MVP was a full participant in a Lakers practice on Monday after being sidelined for the last 1½ months.

“My lungs feel like a newborn baby, that’s the most important thing,” a hoarse-voiced James said during his first media availability since the team’s preseason media day on Sept. 29. “I got to get my lungs back up to a grown man. My voice is already gone. One day back, barking out calls and assignments and stuff, getting my voice working again. Be a lot of tea and rest [Monday night].”

With James back in the fold, the Lakers started the 40-year-old star forward alongside Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and Deandre Ayton.

“We’ll have what we thought the basic rotation would be if we had our full lineup, everybody available for preseason and going into Game 1,” Coach JJ Redick said before the game. “But again, these things change, rotations change, starting lineups change. We’ll see where we’re at tonight, and we’ll go from there.”

Veteran guard Gabe Vincent was also available on Tuesday night after being sidelined for the previous three weeks because of a sprained left ankle he suffered in the Oct. 26 road win over the Sacramento Kings.

Tuesday was the first time the Lakers had all 14 of their players who are signed to standard NBA contracts available for a game.

“We feel good about ourselves right now,” Hachimura said. “We had a really tough schedule, the first 10, [14] games. But I think for us to kind of have everybody back, healthy, it’s great for us to bring the new energy.”

The Lakers opened the season 10-4 before Tuesday’s game despite James’ absence. Multiple Lakers expressed confidence in their ability to integrate James into the current team.

“He’s smart enough and [there’s] enough carryover from last year, both with personnel and with our schemes, that I think it’ll be easy for him to be integrated right away,” Redick said before the game.

James echoed Redick when he spoke with reporters on Monday.

“I have to work my way back into it,” James said. “The guys have been going on road trips, shootarounds, flights. I have to work my way back into the fold of things. So it’s kind of like a kid going to a new school again, got to learn the guys and everything. So they got some great chemistry. Feeling my way back in and do it organically. It shouldn’t be hard. But it’s definitely a feel-out process.”

Redick said he and James had “healthy and positive” conversations during the offseason about what James, who had already played the most combined regular-season and playoff career minutes in league history (71,103) entering Tuesday, wants out of his 23rd NBA season.

“One of the big takeaways from our conversations was just continuing to find ways to challenge him,” Redick said. “That’s part of the reason that he’s still doing it beyond just the love of the game, is his brain needs a new challenge. That’s how he functions at a high level.

“And so just finding new ways to challenge him, whether that’s as a screener, as an off-ball player like we did last year, I thought as the season progressed, he was our best guy coming off off-ball screens. Could be something defensively. Finding ways to challenge him is going to be the biggest thing. He’s smart enough, he’s skilled enough, he’s got the size, he can integrate himself. It’s finding ways to challenge him.”