LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

Such a simplistic approach -- "LeBron is the least of our worries". No. He isn't.

He is the catalyst for these struggles, because he is the immovable object in the lineup. I couldn't care less what he averages. I watch the games and it's horrid.

 

we're not going anywhere with this current James and the youth not living up to expectations (ball/zo). As long as he can take us out of this pitiful existance the last 4 yrs I'll take it, I'm not expecting a chip with this ver. of james and the current team.

 

Unfortunately when you do a search for shrinking balls, you find stuff that is completely unexpected. Sometimes it's worth sharing.

Sometimes it's just questionable. Like this....

Spoiler: NSFW because balls

 

See that's what all of us that had em had reservations about. This "his patience" and all that, while in that interview which admittedly I did not read further, gives the message that the struggles are completely due to everyone else's not playing well enough. STFU with you almost cracked when you at times were part of the problem late in games we could have won. Like you admitted yesterday about your FT performance late being garbage.

 

The lack of faith around here is nothing short of shocking.

We have THE BEST PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE

It’s going to be ok.

 

He's in year 16 , he's not going to go all out at the beginning of the season .

A slow 26/7/8 start on 50% shooting is kind of OK .

I agree he should have won us a couple of more games in the clutch.( spacing is a factor here again though)

I think some are blaming Lebron here because they don't want to admit BI/Zo have been disappointing so far and Maginka has made some bad moves

 

I’ve never been a Lebron fan, but I do give him credit for legitimizing our franchise again. We are one major signing in the summer from being champs for a long time.

 

The problem I’m seeing on this thread is the same old Lebronmania that comes with Lebron.

Excuses, passes (no pun intended), and finger pointing. Our young guys have to step up. Our 2nd unit has to step up, our coaching staff needs to step up, our fans need to step up. Everybody “else” needs to step it up.

You guys will say well Lebron is doing what he’s supposed to. You see the numbers he’s putting up? Well you’re all wrong, because he’s not. I don’t care if he gets paid 40M or $1 a game. He is a professional basketball player. He has been in the league for 16 years, he is a veteran of the game, a 3x champion, 4x league MVP, and the goat based on his fan base. I mean is it too much too ask to just hit some free throws?

You guys are acting like we’re blaming him unfairly. If you are the “best player in the league” and “best passer in the league” and “have the highest IQ in basketball” then you guys tell me/us why, come 4th/OT he continues to make mistakes, not one or two every so often, consistently. He consistently misses free throws, consistently stagnates the offense, he consistently shoots long 3 pointers when we don’t need a three, he consistently pounds the ball for 20-22 seconds of the shot clock and then passes to one of our players who are out of position and has to just jack up a contested shot. He consistently doesn’t play defense and is consistently out of position on switches. He has been the direct cause of us losing at least 3 of the 6 losses thus far and almost lost it for us again, if it wasn’t for Kuz.

 

You guys gotta give credit to LeBron for going to the team with a fan base that hates him the most lol. That takes balls.

99% of Lakers fans have always hated LeBron because of the Kobe comparisons and it’s not easy to win those people over. He will pretty much always get the blame. You can tell he feels that pressure with the way his late game ft shooting has gone.

The way you guys talk about him though I can tell you haven’t really watched his career or the past few years closely. There’s nothing to worry about and he’s the worst of the Lakers problem. He’s a “feel out” player so whenever he’s got a new team it takes him a while to get in the zone. I understand that he looks way less athletic and that shouldn’t really look different on a new team but for some reason with him that’s the way it goes.

When he first came back to the Cavs, the dude looked cooked and a shell of himself but obviously that changed. I get that he’s older now but most likely it’s the same case here. He’s gonna get his legs under him the more the season goes on and all of the sudden he’ll be posterizing people, just watch.

Also, so many of the late game shots he’s been missing, he was nailing just last year so they may seem like bad shots but they really aren’t. He’s just gotta get in rhythm and used to LA and then he’ll start nailing clutch threes that seem like bad shots.

 

You saying “he is the direct cause of losing 3 out of the 6 losses” shows that you’re the type that will never acknowledge his positives and always dwell on the negatives. He obviously hasn’t been perfect and has 100% choked a few times this year with no excuses but it takes a while to get acclimated to a totally new roster and style of play. I feel like that’s really being understated here.

The pace of play is a huge change for LeBron and it’s gonna take some time for him to get used to it and not be fatigued at the end of the games. Even then, most of the games he hasn’t played wel down the stretch, he’s been the only reason the game was close. I mean almost every loss has been close and that’s primarily because LeBron has been only one of the consistent players on the teams.

He’s a unique player in that he really relies on being comfortable with a team. When he’s really used to his surroundings, that’s when he becomes the late-game killer that most Laker fans seem to think he can’t be. I mean all you have to do is go back to last year to see how ridiculously clutch he was. Tons of game winners and huge shots, including 2 game winners in the playoffs with one being in a 7 game series.

With that said, there’s no excuse for his horrible free throw shooting at the end of games but it’s clearly the effect of being new to the Lakers and having that first Spurs game hang over his head. That won’t last.

Again, his defense has also been pretty terrible and there’s no excuses for that but imo he’s been getting a lot better in that area. He’s definitely trying to figure out the balance of effort he has to give in the regular season in the Western conference compared to the East.

 

Aww man, it’s another one. Well welcome to the best Lakers board online.

 

Lol you guys need some Bron stans to balance out the hate. I don’t blame you guys though it’s hard to go from always rooting for him to fail to having him on your team.

And I’m not saying that like you guys are unreasonable. I always respected Kobe’s game but rooted for him to fail the same way I do with KD.

I’ll try to be as objective as possible though