The Lakers’ last season was a failure. Perhaps even one of the biggest failures in the world of sports: the roster with the highest number of All-Star appearances ever, led by LeBron James, who aspired to the NBA Championship and finished it out of the playoffs, the last chance tournament of the best league in the world.
The NBA world is about to reach the most important part of the season without the most important player of its generation, and one of the leading scorers of 2021/22. Even LeBron’s biggest fans do not underestimate the fact that this is a failure, and like everything else happening in LBJ’s life the big question is how it affects his legacy.
Opinions differ. On the one hand there are those who claim that the failure proves some of the opinions that have been around LeBron for years, and that the fact that he failed with a team that marked a championship and with much more talent on paper than there was on the pitch shows he is not omnipotent. On the other hand, there are people who believe that the problems are bigger than him.
In favor of harming the heritage
For years there has been a clear narrative around LeBron James: he makes players around him better, he can downshift in the regular season and still win and he manages to succeed even as the one who makes the actual decisions (according to foreign publications) instead of the general manager of The group. Each and every one of these beliefs was destroyed in the nightmarish 2021/22 season.
It seems like LeBron is not making better players around him in terms of the team, but better players in terms of LeBron James. Russell Westbrook came to the Lakers after playing a single-game style throughout his career, and he has not shown significant change this season. Despite this, the Lakers did not adapt to the former MVP. We’ve seen too many fights over control and bad shots, along with a lack of effort from both of them on defense. In fact, it may have been the first time an actor who did not fit into James’s style of play came along.
In the case of Kevin Love and Chris Bush in Cleveland and Miami, they have become complementary tall. Westbrook has not tried to become a complementary high and has not become one, and that obscures part of King James’ legacy. Until this season, it seems like LeBron’s personal interest is the team’s interest: she’s achieved. This year it broke up, after years in which mediocre players like Tristan Thompson and J.R. Smith were given extra-long contract extensions.
This point also brings us to the next second image, of LeBron the GM. For years he seems to be doing the right things for the team, but this year the Lakers have been particularly passive. We did not see any trade, and in fact at some point in the season the team told LeBron, Anthony Device and Russell Westbrook that they needed to resolve the issues on the pitch. The only additions were minor, and it seems like the manager failed to solve the problem he created himself. The lack of coordination between the Lakers players stood out even before the season (which, by the way, raises the question regarding coach Frank Vogel who opened and finished the season with the Lakers). As general manager, LeBron’s season was bigger than it was on the field. And it’s not easy.
The failure on the field raises a question about another narrative that has been around LeBron for years, the belief that he can downshift in the regular season and explode in the playoffs. This year LeBron may have given an incredible offensive year, but perhaps for the first time it felt like he cared more about his numbers and less about defense. If Westbrook can play one way, why did LeBron not adapt? King James could have focused more on defense, but preferred to score 30 points per game at the time of abandonment on the other side of the field.
LeBron was a good defensive player, and it always seemed like it was a matter of effort. It is impossible not to wonder if in a situation where LeBron would have focused on things that Westbrook was weak at, like a game without the ball close to the basket and defense, the Lakers would have been better. Thus they would not step on each other but fit into each other, and this connects to the central question from their predecessor. It looks like LeBron has done this year what’s good for him and not for the team. This year for the first time there was a gap between these two interests, and the result was shocking.
Against the damage to heritage
Anthony Davis has played in 40 games this season. LeBron himself missed 23 games and struggled with recurring injuries. Kendrick Nan, who was supposed to be the Lakers’ alternative if Westbrook did not fit, did not play a single minute. The plans they had at the beginning of the season just did not work because the players were on the field. LeBron is not to blame for the failure of the medical staff.
We’ve already seen LeBron teams start the season badly and get better later. In the case of the Lakers, they started badly and then the season ended following all the injuries. He is getting older, Device is failing to play 50 games a season and basing on both, assuming they were healthy, is wrong in advance.
Staff building and management is not LeBron’s direct responsibility: he is not responsible for the identity of the minimum players who came around him, Davis and Westbrook. Blaming him for building the squad in full clears the responsibility from manager Rob Plinka or owner Ginny Bass. He scored 30 points per game (with impressive efficiency) with 8 rebounds, 6 assists, steals and a block. No player has made such a statistical season in all of NBA history.
LeBron did it at the age of 37. His fans will say that such a season does not harm his legacy, but the opposite: he did everything he could, and it was not enough. Michael Jordan, at his age, was in the midst of his second retirement. No player has played as many NBA minutes at this age as LeBron, in the regular season and in the playoffs, and he gives an unprecedented stat line. How does this harm his heritage?
The influence of a player is limited and the Lakers, more or less, “wasted” him a year. Beyond the high ability on the offensive side of the field, it can be argued that at this point most of the players are after retirement, or on the bench of other teams. They are not expected to lead clubs that are poorly built for the championship, and only this sentence can attest to the size of LeBron. In addition to the various philosophical arguments that a player can not harm his legacy as long as he continues to play, here too a very convincing argument can be constructed.
So has LeBron’s legacy been damaged or not? There is no single answer. Some will say yes, some will say no. He may not be more competitive in the NBA, but it’s hard to rule out an option where the Lakers manage to build a reasonable defensive team around him, Device stays healthy and the Lakers are still competing for a championship in 2022/23. Feel free to answer for yourself: has LeBron’s season hurt the legacy of the great basketball player of the last generation?
