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It’s a bit too early to say, but LeBron James should really need to figure out the winning project the Los Angeles Lakers must have in order to regain supremacy.
If there’s one thing LeBron James evidently yearns for at this stage of his career, it is to win another championship. Undeniably, he is capable, the problem is, the current Lakers squad aren’t.
Yes, the Lakers have the stars. However, they are not playing like they are supposed to. Take the recent loss to the Chicago Bulls as an example. James dropped 31 points, Carmelo Anthony added 21 and Russell Westbrook chipped in with 20. Still, the team failed.
Prior to the Bulls, the Lakers also suffered a devastating loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Indeed, road games after road games are exhausting and difficult but that’s just how the NBA works. And James is well aware of that. However, he could only “wish” things will get better as they go along.
“Just trying to maintain focus throughout it all,” James said after loss to the T-Wolves via Lakers Nation. “Obviously it’s been a difficult and challenging 36 hours, 24 hours, whatever it’s been, for our ballclub. So we’re just trying to have the next man up mentality, obviously we had a lot of guys in the rotation tonight that we haven’t played with this year.”
“Obviously each year has its own challenges and this year is the Covid cases once again. Positives, false positives, inconclusives, you don’t know what to make of it,” he added. “You wish for the best for everyone and obviously it just hurt our team over the last few days in having Dwight, Malik, Avery, it was possible that Russ was gonna be out. We had Austin in shootaround this morning and then we found out that he’s not in, so it’s just like a revolving door of what-ifs so far. Hopefully we get past it soon and we can really get to who we are as a team, what we are capable of, who we’re on the floor with and not having guys in and out so much.”
After 31 games, it is enough to say, “we need to face reality here.” James obviously needs to play the most important role–identify who could be the x-factor this season.
James and AD have already proven that they can win a championship. Atop that, Nobody doubts Davis’ skill set. However, this season had been quite strange for the pair as the chemistry they once had seems to have been lost. In fact, a stat shows that the Lakers have outscored their opponents by 27 points when James is on the court WITHOUT Davis.
As NBA superstars, James and Davis could find their rhythm back as the season goes. However, one thing they don’t have leverage of is AD’s health.
Davis has missed 36 of the Lakers’ 72 games last season due to various injuries. This time, he’s looking at probably almost a month of being sidelined due to a scary knee injury.
Early tests revealed no structural damage, but additional MRI’s are now being done to be sure about the severity of Davis’ injury.
“I did hear something pop – and the first thing I thought of was that. … Thank God it wasn’t that,” the All-Star big man divulged.
“I mean, mentally, I’m fine,” he added. “I’m in good spirits, just being around the team. Obviously avoided a major injury, which has kind of got my spirits back up because I just didn’t know.”
Trevor Ariza
Veterans are often instrumental to a championship team and Trevor Ariza has proven it over and over again. The question is, could he do it again for the Lakers this season?
The 36-year-old has already recovered from injury and is now back in the lineup. Though he hasn’t made much of an impact yet, Ariza is confident that he could “make a difference” for this team.
“Throughout my career I’ve been like a piece that you can just plug in and do a bunch of different things and make a difference, so whenever I get on the court that’s what I’m looking to do,” Ariza said prior to his return.
The Youngsters
Youth is something the Lakers don’t have this season. In fact, in the team’s official roster, only five of the 18 players are below 25 years old. Among them are Malik Monk, Talen Horton-Tucker and of course, Austin Reaves, the Alex Caruso-like shooting guard who seems to have a promising career ahead of him.
James could make use of their energy and potential but he needs to do it as soon as possible.