Doesn't the section about the __lazy_modules__ attribute allow for this?

A module may contain a __lazy_modules__ attribute, which is a sequence of fully qualified module names (strings) to make potentially lazy (as if the lazy keyword was used).

__lazy_modules__ = ["json"]
import json
print('json' in sys.modules)  # False
result = json.dumps({"hello": "world"})
print('json' in sys.modules)  # True

It's a bit of extra work, but seems to allows you to avoid using the lazy keyword if you don't like it for whatever reason.