HOW TO RESCUE LEBRON? HE MUST APPROVE A TRADE — TO CURRY AND THE WARRIORS

He always has said no to Golden State, but when his plus-minus rating ranks 485th in the NBA — with career-worst numbers — he needs resuscitation from Steph Curry in what would be a dual-twilight epic

The smoke from Malibu haunts paradise. A whiff of the burning might remind LeBron James, only days from his 40th birthday, that he cannot live in Los Angeles and gaze at the sunshine and pretend his own career hasn’t toppled. Not everyone stays. Sometimes, the life clock insists it’s time to quit or create one last try in another city.

Say: San Francisco, where Stephen Curry and Steve Kerr aren’t finished with the hugs in Paris. James has a no-trade clause. He must waive it.

If he does, a trade will happen and basketball will have the dual-twilight epic it needs. If he doesn’t, he should retire now. Watching LeBron crash is no fun.

By remaining with the Lakers, he’s stuck with one quality teammate who tries to stay healthy, Anthony Davis, and has no shot of overcoming vibrant legs in Oklahoma City or Luka Doncic’s rites in Dallas. Boston continues as the NBA king while his old team, in Cleveland, attempts a run. LeBron has lost seven of 10 games, barely in postseason land in the deep Western Conference. In a shocker, only 14 of 499 ranked players have a plus-minus rating below his minus-129. He is declining with career worsts — a 12.5 percent turnover ratio, an 0-for-20 clunker from the three-point line — and is better off joining son Bronny on the bench.

“In games, he's asked for a sub a couple times because he's gassed,” said coach JJ Redick, who didn’t have to deal with the topic during their podcasts.

If these are his final days, James will become an inconsequential figure in a town in love with the Dodgers and a league that still adores Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He took a day off from practice this week, for “personal reasons,” and let’s hope he realizes there’s nothing more to accomplish in a purple and gold uniform in southern California. He won a championship in a pandemic. He broke the league’s all-time scoring record. He created a media company and starred in a movie and a talk show. He played with his son in a game.

Now? He lost by 41 points in Miami and has a sore left foot. Is Redick’s bluster turning into a negative after LeBron demanded him as the head coach? Has the front office, led by owner Jeanie Buss and Rob Pelinka, again left him without the necessary talent? His choice in the presidential election, Kamala Harris, lost to Donald Trump.

“I don't know as far as what will get us over the hump. We just gotta just not drown,” James said.

How did it feel losing to the Heat and the Timberwolves by 70 points, an all-time team low for two games? How did it feel losing four games by 25 or more? “It sucks, for sure, to get your ass whooped,” he said. “For sure.”

Up the freeway, the Golden State Warriors have tried previously to acquire James. He said no each time. But at some point, he will miss falling off the social media trail and needs LeBron mega-attention. That won’t happen at Crypto.com Arena, where the Lakers will become a second local story if Kawhi Leonard actually returns for the Clippers at the new Intuit Dome. The Warriors still have juice with Curry as Curry and Buddy Hield hitting threes in place of Klay Thompson, while Kerr makes his verbal attacks on officials. They would have to give up Jonathan Kuminga, their star of the future, but does anyone think owner Joe Lacob is pondering 2027 if James is willing to move for two years?

Teaming LeBron with Steph, after their gold-medal charge at the Olympics, would bring surges to a league that needs both all-timers in front-and-center eminence. Ratings and hype were immense when they dueled in four Finals, and while they might not survive the Thunder, they’d bring absolute drama to the postseason. At present, the Warriors will lose in the first round. At present, the Lakers will lose in the Play-In round, with Redick saying, “We’re having trouble right now on both ends with like base-level gameplan stuff. It’s odd. It’s very odd. Has to be some ownership. You can splinter, and it's easy to not want the ownership, particularly when it's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed. We're all embarrassed. I’ll take all the ownership in the world. This is my team, I lead it, and I'm embarrassed.”

Together, we’d all watch LeBron and Steph.

Some observers think James is struggling so poorly that doesn’t deserve to play with Curry. He’ll miss Friday night’s game in Minnesota with the same left foot soreness. He’ll eyeball the Lakers until the new year. “I agree with everything JJ said. Whatever he said, I agree 100 percent, 1,000 percent,” he said. If they continue to plunge, don’t be shocked if the future becomes a prominent topic. The Lakers are in no position to pursue a trade for Antetokounmpo if he wants out of Milwaukee. They are paralyzed until LeBron agrees to a trade, while approving players returning to the Lakers. He is tight with Curry and Kerr. He is a longtime pal of Draymond Green, despite the championship-stopping groin smash in the 2016 Finals. This could happen, with ESPN’s Michael Wilbon lobbying for weeks on “Pardon the Interruption.”

Otherwise, he can play for an ignored .500 team and finish his career in slop. He can spend nights watching Bronny play for the South Bay Lakers, where he is averaging 8.7 points on 29.4 percent shooting. But is this what LeBron James wants to do in life at 40?

He changed locations when he couldn’t win in Cleveland … when he couldn’t win more than two titles in Miami … when he finally won once in northeast Ohio. As his birthday nears, he needs one last turn of the lock. He wants to be celebrated, which won’t happen in Los Angeles. Same goes for Curry and Kerr, who have won their four titles in the Bay Area. Fans of the Lakers would be relieved. Fans of the Warriors would be enraptured.

And fans of a sport? We aren’t watching Boston, Cleveland, Oklahoma City and Dallas, but Steph and LeBron? They would stagger us. Every so often, this is a league that fills us with wonderment.

Make it happen, before his plus-minus rating falls to 499th.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.