The Los Angeles Lakers are most certainly out of the playoffs even after their 115-99 loss to the Denver Nuggets. They have a very little chance of still making it, but with 17 games left and three of their starters being hampered by injuries, nobody's going to give them the benefit of the doubt, even with a healthy LeBron James.
LeBron's 13 consecutive playoffs and eight straight Finals appearances are all but over, but according to NBA analyst Brian Windhorst, one other streak of the four-time MVP could end this season.
“His historic run of eight straight Finals and his streak of 13 straight playoff appearances look to be at an end. Another one might be in trouble: his 11-season streak of making first-team All-NBA, which is tied with Karl Malone for the longest in league history.”
Over the past decade, LeBron has been widely recognized as the best player in the world. He dominated the Eastern Conference for most of his career, and no matter what teams tried to dethrone him, it didn't work.
That all changed when he moved to the Western Conference.
The Lakers had a promising start to the season, getting as high as the fourth spot in the West back in December before LeBron went down with a groin injury. He went on to miss 18 games.
He was fortunate enough to still become the captain of the Western Conference All-Star team, although a lot of people found it controversial because of the number of games he missed.
But now that he hasn't been able to will the Lakers to victories, even against some of the worst teams in the league, the people's perception of him is likely going to change. In fact, a lot of them are already claiming that he's no longer the best player in the league;
LeBron is still getting decent numbers. In fact, he just passed Michael Jordan for the fourth spot in the league's All-Time scoring list, but stats are just numbers. Fans want to see him and the Lakers win, and as long as they don't, then things will go from bad to worse for James.
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