On Monday night, LeBron James suffered the biggest loss of his NBA career, losing by a 44-point margin to the Philadelphia 76ers. Interestingly, 44 points was also the biggest margin of defeat in Michael Jordan’s career, when the Washington Wizards lost 111-67 to the New Jersey Nets on January 16, 2002.
That makes for quite an interesting coincidence, but bizarrely enough, that’s not the end of it. LeBron was 38 years and 332 days old when he suffered that loss to the 76ers, while Jordan was just a day older at 38 years and 333 days when he lost to the Nets.
Jordan and LeBron will forever be linked with each other thanks to the GOAT debates, and coincidences like this just make it a little bit more special. I’m sure the two of them won’t have much of an interest in talking about these losses, though.
Jordan had 10 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 block on that night, and the Wizards as a team shot just 30.0% from the field in that game. The Nets, meanwhile, shot 52.4% from the field and when you combine those two, you get a 44-point blowout.
As for LeBron’s play in his biggest loss, he had 18 points, 5 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block on the night. There wasn’t much of a disparity in terms of the percentages that the teams shot from the field, but the 76ers were 22-46 from beyond the arc while the Lakers were just 7-28, which explains why the score was so lopsided.
It would have been quite something had Jordan and LeBron ended with somewhat identical stat lines on those nights, but that wasn’t to be. LeBron would also be hoping that his season ends differently than Jordan’s did. The Wizards ended up missing the playoffs in 2002 with a 37-45 record, in part due to Jordan missing some time due to injury.
The Lakers dropped to 10-8 on the season with the loss, but aren’t really in any danger of missing out on a playoff berth. The only way that happens would be if LeBron or Anthony Davis end up missing a significant portion of the season due to some freak injury. Hopefully, that does not happen.
LeBron James Had A Blunt Response When Asked What Needs To Change For The Lakers
LeBron has had some bad losses in his career, which is to be expected when you have played for 21 seasons in the league. The fact that this was the biggest loss, though, was certainly concerning and when James was asked what needs to change for the Lakers this season, he sent a scary message.
“I asked LeBron James what needs to change after a night like tonight – ‘A lot,’ he said. Declined to elaborate.”
What happened against the 76ers would have been unacceptable for James, and he was very upset after the loss. I don’t expect the Lakers to make wholesale changes to their roster anytime soon, as that would be jumping the gun. Some schematic changes, though, would certainly be in order you’d think.
LeBron would also be hoping that his teammates put in a great showing in response to that embarrassing loss and fortunately for them, they have the perfect opponent for it. The Lakers will face a Detroit Pistons outfit that has lost 14 games in a row on Wednesday night, and I expect a blowout win for them.
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