Top Takeaways from LeBron James, Lakers' Loss vs. Devin Booker, Suns
It's another day ending with a "y," so it's time for another installment of fretting about the status of the Los Angeles Lakers.
This time, the Lakers were again bludgeoned on national television, with the Phoenix Suns earning a 140-111 win that was never close from the opening tip. The Suns scored 48 first-quarter points and never trailed for the final 45 minutes of the game.
LeBron James finished with 31 points, seven rebounds and six assists in another stellar effort undone by his supporting cast.
The Lakers have now lost their last seven games in which James did not score 50-plus points.
America's favorite crash reality television show now sits 29-38 on the season, 5.5 games behind the rival Clippers for eighth place in the Western Conference. For all of the handwringing about Anthony Davis' injury, the Clippers have managed to stay above .500 while Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have combined to play in 26 total games this season.
With 15 games remaining, the Lakers look increasingly like a team breaking huddles with "1-2-3, CANCUN!"
LeBron James and the Season of Hollow Milestones
1 of 2
As LeBron James met with reporters Sunday night, dejected after another blowout loss and seemingly resigned to finishing this season in play-in irrelevance, he was pictured clutching onto the game ball.
While it's odd for a player of a losing team to get a game ball—let alone hold onto it so close after a 29-point shellacking—this was no ordinary whooping. Somewhere in the midst of watching the Suns cash threes in his teammates' faces and avoiding the inflated orange missiles coming off the backboard after wild Russell Westbrook clangs, James managed to become the first player to reach 10,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 10,000 assists.
"To now sit alone at a statistical category in this league that I've really modeled my game after: being able to score, rebound and assist," James told reporters. "I sit alone at a stat is pretty like...I'd say 'cool,' but it doesn't quite make sense to me."
There is no downplaying the statistical accomplishment. It's evidence of James' once-in-a-generation talent. Here stands a 6'9", 250-pound man who looks like he was built in granite who also happens to be arguably the greatest mind the game has ever seen—a basketball savant who makes the right play seemingly every time he glides down the floor.
But for the second time in a month, James' career-long accomplishments are obscured by his team fading into play-in irrelevance.
Four weeks ago, James was once again on national television making history, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most NBA points in the regular season and postseason. Once again, there was some lip service paid to James' monumental achievement before the focus shifted to the fact the Lakers were a sinking ship being held together with Elmer's glue.
Basketball is not baseball. It's not a game of numbers. Few fans would be able to tell you the exact amount of points James needs to pass Kareem on the all-time regular-season scoring list (38,387). Or Wilt Chamberlain's rebounds record (23,924). Or John Stockton's unbeatable assists number (15,806).
Basketball is a game of wins and dynasties. It's RINGZZZZ culture.
James, for as great as he remains at age 37, is no longer good enough to carry a dreadful roster to championship contention by himself. The Boobie Gibsons and Sasha Pavlovic and JJ Hicksons of the world can't be foisted upon LeBron's shoulders and thrust into relevance anymore.
At a time when LeBron finally needs the help, he has none. Anthony Davis can't stay on the court, Russell Westbrook shouldn't be on the court, and the rest of the roster is some walking Boobie Gibsons.
So all that's left are stats. A 50-point game here. A triple-double there. A career milestone everywhere. Hollow statistical achievements that won't be remembered without a Basketball Reference deep dive.
As LeBron chases immortality, this season—and this roster—has made the whole chase seem the worst thing of all: irrelevant.
When Does Lakers Ownership Start Getting Its Rightful Blame?
2 of 2
There will be scapegoats for this Lakers season. Frank Vogel has been a dead man walking since about January. Russell Westbrook, after angling for a return home to Los Angeles last summer, would probably take a trade to Istanbul to get away from Lakers fans at this point. The roster of also-ran role players will be wiped clean.
While your mileage may vary on how much of the blame each of those parties share, are they really the core of the problem?
The Lakers have, quietly, been a bastion of dysfunction for nearly a decade now. The latter years of Kobe Bryant's career were littered with sibling infighting, terrible coaching choices and bad roster decisions that left Kobe to play out his twilight days for some of the worst teams in basketball.
From a five-year stretch from 2013-14 to 2017-18, no team had a worse record than the Lakers.
It was only LeBron James' desire to play in Los Angeles that saved the franchise from becoming Knicks West.
As James ages and becomes less able to paper, the issues plaguing the ownership group are starting to show again.
In Sunday night's episode of Winning Time, the HBO series covering the 1980s Lakers, Dr. Jerry Buss looked at then-head coach Jerry West and offered him an unlimited budget to deliver Los Angeles a champion. At the time, Buss didn't have an unlimited budget to offer—he had anything but. He'd sunk his entire fortune into buying a franchise in a floundering league that had its Finals games broadcast on tape delay.
Buss, along with a fortunate coin flip that landed the Lakers Magic Johnson.
These Lakers have what should be an unlimited budget. They're a $5.5 billion franchise that would fetch more than that if ever put up for sale, equipped with a massive television deal with Spectrum, on top of the already-massive rights deals paid by ESPN and Turner, on top of people filling Crypto.com Arena and paying Los Angeles prices.
The franchise is a cash cow being run at the antithesis of the Jerry Buss mindset. The Lakers allowed Alex Caruso to walk in free agency over cost concerns; they did the same with Julius Randle in 2018. The Lakers were reportedly hesitant to bolster their roster at the trade deadline because they didn't want the extra tax burden.
Last summer, the Lakers got outbid by the Portland Trail Blazers to bring Scott Brooks in as an assistant coach. This isn't the first time the Lakers cheaped out in a coaching search, either.
The Lakers are a five-star resort being run like a family bed and breakfast in Biloxi, Mississippi.
The issues run deeper than finances. The Lakers seemingly only make hires within an increasingly small circle of trusted confidants. Rob Pelinka was Kobe Bryant's longtime agent. As the Lakers season began falling apart, team president Jeanie Buss began relying on old pals Kurt Rambis, his wife Linda, Magic Johnson and Phil Jackson for advice.
Never mind that Johnson and Jackson, for as great as they were in their respective NBA crafts, proved to be incompetent when given a chance at running basketball organizations. Or that Rambis is one of the worst coaches in NBA history and has largely found success in his post-playing days by being a guy more successful people (namely Jackson) like having around.
Every time the Lakers franchise faces turmoil those same four names crop up. Buss tried to coax Jackson out of retirement to fix the broken relationship between Dwight Howard and Bryant in 2012. She handed Johnson the keys to the franchise in 2017, and Magic laughingly threw them back and ran out of the building two years later.
There's something to be said for keeping a close circle, but when that circle consistently leads to poor basketball decisions and mismanagement, it might be time to open things up a little.
