LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

Okay let’s not exaggerate now. Bron hasn’t hit even half a billion in net worth. Jordan is the only billionaire basketball player currently.

Imo he is not smart for coming here. This is the Lakers, an organization that is and will always be bigger than the player, and he thought he could come here and be the usual Lebron James. The Laker fan base is a different beast. This ain’t Cleveland and this ain’t Miami. I don’t think he’s about winning. This season is the evidence. He has not gotten better or smarter since he’s been in Miami. You think it’s smart that he get his stats in a loss than to play crucial defense or hit free throws in a win. These are things “he” is responsible for. It has nothing to do with him “not having help”. It’s always said the things you can control, you control, everything else is out of your hands. He hasn’t gotten better at free throws, he hasn’t gotten better at defense, he hasn’t gotten better as a leader, so no he’s not smart. Should have stayed in the East.

I should be thankful he came, you say. Actually I never wanted him to come because I knew what was going to happen. I knew he would want to blow up the team, I knew he wouldn’t close games for us, I knew he wouldn’t play defense, I knew he would throw the team under if we did bad. I knew he would “get his stats” and that the media would say “he needs more help” so I’m not one of the ones who actually wanted him here. I wanted us to bring the same roster as last year back with the addition of Paul George.

I did, however, accept it. And I saw flashes of greatness and I was pretty happy during those times. But the missed free throws, the lack of closing out games, the horrible defense, and the “I got my stats” attitude outweighed all the good he did do and I was over it before it really got started.

Except for his Miami move and now this move. I believe, and it’s only a theory, that the reason you haven’t found anything on him in his career is that the people around him are great at covering things up. I’m not saying I want him to have a scandal, not at all, I’m simply saying, in that environment, being lauded as the biggest thing and having people literally worship you even at the early age of 15, I find it hard to believe that scandals hit every other superstar except for him, especially in the social media era.

 

A combination of injuries, bad coaching, Lebron not closing games, bad free throw shooting as a team, poor defense, and the lack of team chemistry impacted our season. All of it. Nothing was more than the other it was a combination.

Even if we stayed healthy, there’s no way we’d be at the top. We’d be fighting for a 7th-8th spot. All the teams at the bottom at the beginning of the season flip-flopped with the teams that were at the top and I just didn’t see enough early on to believe that we would have been competing for home court advantage.

 

Debating where we would've ended up in the West is semantics guys. There is a 3 game difference between the 5 spot and 8th spot right now. It's always been so close.

That being said, injuries do happen and you have to be resilient as a team. Pacers, Clippers, and Nuggets are all good examples of that. The way we were constructed and the way we were playing, the team was so dependent on LeBron that they lost their identity afterwards. The hole was so big that after the all star break LeBron would have literally had to go 2013 Kobe to get us into the playoffs. We all know he's not going to do that. He cares more about his long term career, breaking records, and doesn't have that type of loyalty to LA. I don't fault him one bit for it, honestly.

The key is going to be what we do this summer. If we, as rumored, miss out on KD, Kawhi, Leonard, and maybe even AD, can we still make something of it? I would like us to go after someone like Kemba Walker and maybe a Jimmy Butler type guy. Not necessarily All NBA first or second team players, but guys that can take the load of an aging LeBron and take us deeper into the playoffs.

 

kemba is/will be an overpaid lou will, once he gets his max deal. Lou does just bout everything kemba can do offensively just a lil less passing n both r meh on D

 

advanced stats have kemba as a much better (or much less bad?) defender over the years. that and his ability to create for others is the difference between the two. plus, kemba has done it against starters, whereas lou's career damage has been done largely against second stringers.

i like lou (look at my posts when we traded him for a late 1st), but there's a reason he's a journeyman.

now, is kemba overpaid at the max? oh yes. but this is the game you play when you hoard cap space instead of trying to build a team. if you strike out on the handful of true max guys available, you're overpaying. again, you don't have to mozdeng. but you do have to overpay.

 

Kemba might be overpaid on a max, I won't argue that. But right now we desperately lack scoring at the guard position. We need someone who can be a threat in the PnR and pull up from 3 so guys don't keep going over screens. Let Lonzo play the 2 guard spot and hopefully he finds his shot this summer. Kuzma should be the 3, LeBron the 4, and we can sign DMC or some other center that's better than McGee at the 5 spot, for sure.

If we aren't going to get big names, I don't want to see us punt cap space again. Instead, we can use our flexibility to go after more bench depth. Lineups we played with Rondo, Ingram, Chandler and co were just so awful. Maybe some better, longer term signings on that end will suit us more.

 

I'll easily take Kemba on this roster plus LeBron and young core and some savvy vets that aren't knuckleheads..

Kemba would be like Kyrie for LeBron I feel...and he can actually score and put a ton of pressure on the opposing team.

Putting Lonzo next to him should also help mitigate the defensive issues...

Question becomes...who do you start? Ingram or Kuzma?

 

Lou Williams is the leagues all-time leading scorer off the bench, and his career is not close to over. I think calling a multiple times sixth man of the year just a journeyman sells him a little bit short.

He’s a guy I would take back anytime.

The issue with the LeBron system is that because he is so ball dominant, as he gets older and he goes down with injuries, of course the team is going to struggle. He hasn’t shown the ability or the willingness to change his game besides drift further back from the three-point line
Nobody wants to play with a fading superstar who is going to hog the ball when they have better options and can make just as much elsewhere with a lot less headaches.

We just missed the freaking playoffs this year. So, barring any major miracle, we won’t be winning a championship in the next several years.

Our coach doesn’t seem to be able to make good adjustments, there aren’t any great free agent coaches available, our executives don’t know how to assemble a roster, LeBron is limited and aging and will continue to get injured and can’t hit his free throws and is a poor leader, and apparently nobody wants to play with LeBron.

He already burned his bridges in this locker room and pissed off Jeanie buss. Basically, I see very little to look forward to during the next three years, and I would trade his a** in a heartbeat.

 

We’ll have to agree to disagree then because good coaching and good team chemistry, as we have seen around the league, trumps injuries all the time. As I said, we had problems that cost us games before all the injuries occurred. The lack of injuries or minimal injuries wasn’t going to just magically fix the problems we had.

 

Injuries DID play a significant role in the disaster but this is my thinking :

- Who is surprised Lonzo got injured ? He hasn't played in 100 NBA games yet
- BI isn't Iron man either
- Hart decided to play in the Summer league , admitted it was wrong , why wasn't his health through the year better monitored by the training staff ?
- Lebron injury wasn't expected but isn't surprising with the insane mileage put on his body for 15 seasons
- McGee has played limited minutes for some seasons and got health pbs

FO constructed a poor roster around Lebron which had no margin for error to begin with and when given the injuries history of the players on the said roster , the outcome of the season isn't a huge surprise

 

But that was always the expectation all along. We wanted to make the playoffs as a lower seed (non title favorite) and hope to play the spoiler.

You need star power in a team-up league. Bron off ball helps extend his career and while that 2nd star comes, you need playmakers around him.

Our PGs were ravaged with injury. Then you take BI and plug n play him along with Bron and now you're putting more duress on them. Add to that a bizarre affinity to play small ball and the health slide continued...

Fans are acting like we broke up a title contending team and are now stuck with this current team of largely expiring deals. Just like it's too early to tell if the team was going to get it or not this year...it's just as early to say this is the FO's endgame. It's obviously not...so patience is necessary to see this through.

Luke had a tough situation no doubt and I'm not going to say it's entirely his fault, but for as much of a stink as folks are making towards the loss of Zu, how much PT was he getting from Luke and the coaching staff?

Zo, Rondo, Lance, BI, Caruso
BI, Hart, Kcp, Lance, Svi
Bron, Beas, Lance
Kuz, Moe, Williams
McGee, Zu, TyChandler

I'm not saying we go 3 deep at each position, but we certainly had the players to battle injuries. You can say that we definitely had the players to battle injuries at the point position. So why did Luke not play Lance more? We know why Beas could have been aloof, but maybe it would have been therapeutic for dude to see more time on the court to distract him from what was happening off it?

Luke's rotations bothered all of us, but we had the horses to avoid compiling injuries and for some reason the coaching staff rather play small ball and place further duress on players (see Hart, Kuz and Bron playing out of position) instead of going to the next man up (see Zu, Moe or William's minutes).

Anyways...the summer is coming and Bron's going to try to get in touch with a dude (or dudes) that should help keep him young by having him play more off ball...you know, giving him playmakers (ie reinventing the wheel).



Oh look, Kawhi does that cover the mouth/mafioso thing too.

 

Well he sure didn't linger long to give LeDouche the perfunctory man hug out of respect.

 

He doesn't want to be associated with the freak show around Lebron. Nobody does except second tier players, and the ones we have don't want to be here any longer after he tried to trade them.

I seriously hope we reconsider this move and trade him. We'll recover a whole lot faster IMHO.

 

all he needs is two more stars lol

 

I think all kuz needs is two more all nba players.

 

I didn't realize Lebron has a 15% trade kicker, so basically it makes trading him near impossible.

 

This is why Lakersball needs the hate button as well as the like button. No offense .... you're just the messenger but