The Chaos Surround LeBron’s Lakers
The Unprofessional Driving Podcast
The Lakers won last summer by signing LeBron, but it has been chaos ever since. How much more chaos might we see if they don’t get AD between now and tomorrow’s trade deadline?
The reality is, if the Lakers can’t land AD, there is little reason to believe they will be able to find a second, much less a third, star to join the King — just look at how the last year has progressed.
LeBron signed with them after years of striking out on free agents because of track record of poor decision-making as an organization. After the Lakers refused to trade for a star this time last year, Kawhi indicated he’d rather play on the other side of Staple’s, PG stayed in OKC, KD called LeBron “toxic”, and Kyrie’s make-up phone call is hardly a guarantee that he’ll want to play with LBJ after leaving him last summer.
The power play by Rich Paul tipped LeBron’s hand in showing how desperate he and the Lakers are to get a second star — they know it’s virtually now or never for the 34 year old star coming off the first significant injury of his career. Unfortunately, that strong arm maneuver is likely the thing that will keep them from finalizing what could be their last shot at a bonafide star.
What’s more? Trade rumors have all but alienated the Lakers young players and tempered their development amid the chaos. Beyond even that, LeBron’s transparent campaign to overthrow Luke Walton is never going to inspire a playoff push by an already exacerbated squad of young pups and misfit vets on one year contracts. This was never going to work, unless the Lakers somehow found a way to trade for AD… And they haven’t. Their move — just pick one since signing LeBron — was the wrong one, and it may set the course for a dark close to James’ career.
Maybe the lesson in all of this is that LeBron’s method of winning only works with veteran players who are over themselves, have already tried to do it on their own, and are willing to ride LeBron’s coattails to a championship, rather than young players who have are aspiring to be LeBron, have watched him do this from afar, and now see through the sub-tweets, headlines, and not-so-low-key attempts at replacing them with unibrowed big men — see Kyrie’s exit from Cleveland for proof.
Or maybe the lesson is simpler than that: If the Lakers had traded for Paul George last year, then you would have already paired LeBron with a now MVP caliber star — an ascension that the Lakers clearly did not see coming — and thus fewer questions would loom. Waiting for AD to sign in 2020 would no longer feel like sitting on the front end of 40 years in the desert. But then again, what fun would that have been for the rest of us?
The Lakers are in a nearly impossible position: bow to the Pelicans’ absurd and spiteful trade demands, or go through another season and a half with the directionless replaceables you claim now, hoping and praying AD still wants to sign with the Lakers after an eminent trade this summer. It’s not a decision I envy, but to me it’s simple. Get AD now, or things get dark. There is no middle ground for LeBron’s Lakers.
