{"id":2021010,"date":"2026-07-01T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T08:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2021010"},"modified":"2026-07-01T11:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T08:00:24","slug":"lebron-james-made-the-lakers-matter-again-for-that-he-is-an-all-time-great-laker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2021010","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James made the Lakers matter again. For that, he is an all-time great Laker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I\u2019m old enough to remember when Johnny Gill joined legendary R&B group New Edition, replacing Bobby Brown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some couldn\u2019t get over Gill not being Brown and thought he would never be a \u201creal\u201d member of the group because he wasn\u2019t part of the original quintet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But imagine \u201cN.E. Heartbreak\u201d without Gill \u2013 he was necessary to make that album special. Eventually, fans (at least those with sense) accepted Gill and all six members have toured together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

LeBron James is like Gill to the most extreme of Lakers fans. He wasn\u2019t a Laker for life like Magic Johnson or Kobe Bryant. His tenure couldn\u2019t top Kareem Abdul-Jabbar\u2019s stint (though he did top a certain \u201cunbreakable\u201d record<\/a>) or bring the same success of prime Shaquille O\u2019Neal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But this talk of James not being a \u201creal\u201d Laker<\/a>, that it\u2019s good riddance to him and all the LeBron Stans now that James has decided to play elsewhere next season, is wild. You can debate where James ranks among great Lakers, but he is definitely<\/em> a great Laker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

James\u2019 No. 23 will join the likes of Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar, O\u2019Neal, West and Bryant in the rafters of <\/span>Crypto.com<\/span> Arena when he retires from the NBA.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

James deserves a statue alongside the likes of Elgin Baylor, Oscar De La Hoya, Chick Hearn and Wayne Gretzky outside the arena.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible for James\u2019 Lakers legacy to match that of Bryant and other greats. Bryant and Johnson arrived as teenagers and retired as all-time greats. Abdul-Jabbar and O\u2019Neal won multiple titles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Lakers were the best team in the NBA before the COVID-19 pandemic ended the season and James followed through in the bubble, delivering the 2020 NBA championship. Cynics dismiss it because it was during the pandemic, in an enclosed environment players grew tired of, but the Lakers were on a title trajectory before the NBA shut down.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

{“endpoint”:”https:\/\/api-prd-nyt.theathletic.com\/graphql”}<\/p>\n

To appreciate why James is forever a Laker, it\u2019s not about that championship. It\u2019s about where the Lakers were before James.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lakers hadn\u2019t just fallen on hard times. They were way behind the LA Clippers in the standings, a laughable idea for most Angelenos. The Golden State Warriors had become champions three times since the Lakers had won a title.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lakers had more in common with the struggling Sacramento Kings than they did with any other team in California.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n The Lakers traded many of their young players to land Anthony Davis after James arrived. (Harry How \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Bryant retired in 2016. The Lakers went 17-65 that season. The next couple of seasons were spent hoping the Lakers\u2019 young core would carry the team into a new era of winning. The Lakers were 35-47 and missed the playoffs before James arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

James\u2019 arrival meant the Lakers mattered again. Sure, the young core of Brandon Ingram, Julius Randle, D\u2019Angelo Russell, Lonzo Ball, Larry Nance Jr., Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart was promising, but the Lakers are about superstars.<\/p>\n

James brought the Lakers star power and relevance they hadn\u2019t had since Bryant was cooking. Sure, the Lakers name still mattered before James, but the Lakers didn\u2019t matter in the postseason. James had the ability to change that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lakers were 20-14 when bad luck hit, and James injured his groin on Christmas 2018 at Golden State. The Lakers stumbled without James for 17 games and missed the playoffs again.<\/span><\/p>\n

After trading many of their young players to land Anthony Davis, the 2019-20 Lakers would break through during the pandemic for the franchise\u2019s 17th championship and helped a city and fanbase cope after Bryant\u2019s tragic death in January 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is when James solidified his Lakers legacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bad luck and bad decisions derailed what would have been a bigger impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

James was having an MVP-caliber season, and the Lakers were contenders to repeat as champions when Solomon Hill dove for a loose ball on March 21, 2021, and rolled into James, causing a high ankle sprain that would send the Lakers down the standings. Davis\u2019 injury in the first round of the playoffs helped doom the Lakers against Phoenix after they took a 2-1 lead over the Suns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There was only one conference finals after that (2023) and multiple questionable roster decisions (not keeping Alex Caruso, the Russell Westbrook trade) and injuries that kept James\u2019 eight seasons from being better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But James\u2019 time as a Laker matters. It\u2019s significant. He stepped in where most stars would have run in the opposite direction as the first star after the Kobe era. He\u2019s passing the title of face of the franchise to Luka Don\u010di\u0107.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

And the Lakers are in a better place for Don\u010di\u0107, not in the upper echelon of the Western Conference yet, but certainly not the basement of the post-Kobe\/pre-LeBron era.\u00a0<\/span>This new edition of the Lakers needs some retooling, but they should be a playoff-caliber squad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u010di\u0107 can thank James for that. And that\u2019s why James is a \u201creal\u201d Laker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m old enough to remember when Johnny Gill joined legendary R&B group New Edition, replacing Bobby Brown.\u00a0 Some couldn\u2019t get over Gill not being Brown and thought he would never be a \u201creal\u201d member of the group because he wasn\u2019t part of the original quintet.\u00a0 But imagine \u201cN.E. Heartbreak\u201d without Gill \u2013 he was necessary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-2021010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2021010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2021010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2021010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2021010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}