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The All-Star break is almost upon us, and while many expected that to be a point of joy, it is now the encapsulation of a pressure-cooker that will test LeBron James' short-lived tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The King signed a four-year, $154 million deal to make his way to La La Land this summer, a deep commitment made with the promise that a team would be built around him to terrorize the Western Conference.
Paul George passed. Kawhi Leonard passed. And now the trade deadline also passed. Fruitless.
Yet James and the Lakers are grasping for answers and hoping this less-than-mediocre start to the season doesn't see the purple-and-gold out of the playoffs and put a stain in The King's new reign out West.
Missing the playoffs is a real possibility
The Lakers find themselves in 10th place in the West, 2.5 games behind their hallway rival in the L.A. Clippers, who were bumped out of the last playoff spot by the Sacramento Kings.
The Clippers will likely have no stake in this playoff race, considering they traded Tobias Harris before the deadline in hopes to secure future assets and open up ample cap room to sign Leonard and other potential big-time free agents.
The Kings, however, could pose a problem. Head coach Dave Joerger has them playing a motivated brand of basketball, and the addition of Harrison Barnes into the fold only gives them another scorer to carry them there.
Teams like the San Antonio Spurs (33-26), the Utah Jazz (32-25) and the Houston Rockets (33-23) are historically good through the second half of the season and will likely go through and make the playoffs, barring an unexpected injury to a star player or a drastic decline.
The postseason sweepstakes are likely to be a two-horse race between the Kings and the Lakers for the last ticket.
Los Angeles is now 2.5 games out of the eighth and last spot in the West and have the ninth-toughest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon — with two games remaining against the Milwaukee Bucks, as well as a season-series capper against the Golden State Warriors, Toronto Raptors, Denver Nuggets and the Oklahoma City Thunder in their future.
Needless to say, the road back to the playoffs won't be easy for King James and company.
Factoring legacy
One would think that missing out on his first playoff stint since 2006 would be a blip in the radar, but in fact, missing the playoffs for the first time in 14 seasons would be all the more catastrophic for James and his legacy — as it's all he's built his resume around.
Starting with his third season in the league, LeBron James has made the postseason 14 straight times and gone to the NBA Finals in eight straight years, catapulting him into the most familiar face of the playoffs in this generation.
Despite being 3-6 in The Finals, James' entire resume and best case for becoming the greatest NBA player of all-time rests in his consistency and an otherworldly ability to carry his team to the postseason, no matter the circumstances.
Just a season ago, LeBron singlehandedly carried the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals, playing all 82 games for the first time in his career and at age 33 — something that was viewed as a superhuman effort, given the injuries to Kevin Love and the departure of Kyrie Irving over the summer.
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During the entirety of the 2017-18 season; James was Atlas, the mythological Titan once condemned to hold up the celestial heavens on his broad shoulders for eternity.
James played in every regular season game and escaped a potential first-round exit against the Indiana Pacers in seven games, swept the Toronto Raptors and came out clutch in a Game 7 win over the Boston Celtics — only to be swept by the Golden State Warriors and put an end to his stronghold on the Eastern Conference.
While the likes of controlling-owner Jeanie Buss, president Magic Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka never wanted his time in L.A. to become another Cleveland, the expectation of being able to muster the same effort, if needed, was implied.
Yet this Lakers roster is different from the 2017-18 Cavs. They're young, inexperienced, and clueless about how to morph their game to fit alongside a superstar of James' caliber. Cleveland had veterans — veterans that knew James and had played next to him enough to know what was needed to finish out the season the right way.
This Lakers roster has yet to figure that out, while other teams have been aggressive chasing the parts needed to go full-throttle.
Facing what's at stake
The Lakers have been on a rut as of late, losing their last two games heading into the All-Star break, including four of their last five and seven of their last 10 games — further distancing themselves from the goal at hand.
A recent 117-113 loss to the Atlanta Hawks proved as another low for the struggling team, only a week after a baffling 42-point loss to a Victor Oladipo-less Indiana Pacers, the worst loss of James' career.
At 28-29, Los Angeles has strides to make and the road ahead isn't an easy one.
The Lakers will get back from the All-Star Weekend to face a hungry Houston Rockets team and if they happen to navigate the rest of February successfully, they have another thing coming in March. A Friday night game against the Milwaukee Bucks, followed by a pivotal string of games against the Clippers, Denver Nuggets and the Boston Celtics the ensuing week.
James and company will follow that with a five-game Eastern Conference road trip, only to come back to a crucial matchup with the Kings, one they must absolutely win if they hope to seal a potential tiebreaker (Lakers own 2-1 season-series lead).
The Lakers will face a murderers' row in the closing 25 games of the season, and if LeBron James isn't able to lift them into making the postseason, this season will be a failure in his eyes and in the eyes of the front office.
James notably stressed patience throughout the process upon arriving in Los Angeles, but if there is a tank or meter to measure it — it's getting damn close to empty with only two months left to define his tenure as a Laker and his legacy as a player.
