As LeBron James mulls his future with the Lakers, the nature of his current relationship with the team is being unveiled before our eyes. According to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, one of the initial cracks between LeBron and the Lakers (specifically former head coach Darvin Ham) formed after their bizarre attempt to enforce a minutes restriction for his 21st season.
“Ham’s tenure unraveled quickly in his second season,” wrote Shelburne. “James bristled at the idea of restricting his minutes at the start of the season,” sources said — an idea that was noticeably scrapped after just a few games.
In the opening game of the season, Ham kept LeBron to just 29 minutes in a loss to the Denver Nuggets, and he still managed to finish with a team-high 21 points. LeBron hovered around the 30-minute mark for the opening weeks of the season… until a game against the Clippers on November 1st when he logged 42 minutes. From then on, the Lakers scrapped their plans entirely without so much as a mention and it proved to be the right decision since his play is what kept them alive for so long.
That whole ordeal was the start of LeBron slowly losing faith in his head coach and, over time, it trickled down through the locker room and into every Lakers player. By the end of this season, the players were ready to turn on Darvin and Anthony Davis even went so far as to call out his leadership publicly.
Now that he’s been dismissed from coaching duties and is in the process of being replaced, there is hope that the Lakers can restore a positive and healthy culture in the locker room. But Ham was far from the only source of problems for the Lakers and it’s clear that LeBron hasn’t forgotten some of the mistakes the others have made since his arrival years ago.
LeBron James Is At A Crossroads
If there’s one thing LeBron has made clear over the past few years, it’s that he’ll end things on his terms. Unlike other superstars who tainted their legacy on the way out, LeBron wants to be on the top until he retires but that’s much easier said than done.
At 39 years old, LeBron knows that he doesn’t have a lot of time left in his career and he doesn’t want to waste it playing in meaningless games. As a free agent this summer, James is expected to consider every option at his disposal from retirement to even potentially leaving the Lakers on a multi-year deal.
At the very least, LeBron will think twice before he agrees to return to the Lakers this summer and it might take some convincing before he officially commits. The first order of business for the franchise is hiring a new head coach and one that can maximize where the Lakers are at right now with an aging roster of veterans.
After that, only time will tell how it all plays out but LeBron is going to be at the center of everything for them and he will not stand for anything less than superstar treatment. Even at almost 40 years old, King James still calls the shots and it’s not a good sign for the Lakers that his unhappiness throughout the season has been so publicly broadcast.
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