LeBron James has tried to uplift the Los Angeles Lakers’ level since the start of the season, but the 4x NBA champion can’t catch a break. His team hasn’t been the same since that magical 2020 where they won the NBA title in the infamous Orlando bubble, with James and Anthony Davis playing at a high level.
The Lakers have struggled to be that team that dominated everybody in Florida, making big changes trying to improve their level, but only regressing. This campaign, Russell Westbrook hasn’t been unable to make an impact on the team, while Davis has been dealing with injuries.
That has left LeBron James carrying the load of the Lakers, but the team simply can’t win if the King doesn’t drop a lot of points over his opponents. The clock is ticking for the Purple and Gold and AD is well aware of that. Talking about the team’s championship window, the Brow claimed that it’s ‘short,’ as nobody knows what the future holds for LeBron.
“Very short window,” Davis said, via ESPN. “We don’t know how long he has left in this league. Phenomenal player, future Hall of Famer, and to be able to play alongside him, you want to take advantage of it. We did the first year. Last year we both were banged up, and then this year, it’s [injuries] again but more so me. So every day it’s closing. That’s another frustrating part. A lot of guys don’t get to play with talent like that. I have the opportunity to do so. … I want to take advantage of that time.
“He has another year left with the Lakers … and then who knows? I don’t know what he’s going to do. So we got this year and next year to try to take advantage of that and get another ring out of it.”
While the Lakers struggle to get things going, the rest of the NBA keeps getting better. The Eastern Conference is now the strongest one, but that doesn’t mean the competition doesn’t exist in the West. The Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets and more are still dangerous teams and the Lakers are well aware of that.
The front office didn’t make good moves in the offseason and now things are going wrong. If they manage to fix this situation, perhaps they can run it back with LeBron and Davis once again, but we need to wait and see if that happens.
