LEBRON MADE HIS OWN BED, NOW MUST LIVE IN IT WITH DENTED LEGACY

Unlike Tom Brady, who has maneuvered successfully through his career twilight, James has sabotaged himself with wretched roster failures and behavior missteps — as called out by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

     To call it what it is — a historically abysmal flop, the ultimate indictment of the superteam craze — seems an understatement in totality. Closer to the point, LeBron James never has looked worse as a superstar manipulator and social hypocrite. Just when he’s finalizing a “For Your Consideration’’ career legacy, like an awards-season billboard in Los Angeles, his self-styled team has delivered an all-time stinker.

     The stench is particularly wicked as the Lakers plummet out of the NBA’s play-in tournament, designed for also-rans, and you sense James doesn’t mind much that they’ve lost 10 of their last 12 games and 28 of 38. If he isn’t blatantly quitting, as he once did in a conference finals that led him to tear off his Cleveland jersey and flee to South Beach, you might call this a subliminal tank job as he only vaguely tried to will his team toward a now-unreachable postseason.

     Notice how he scored only four points in the fourth quarter Friday of a critical home loss to New Orleans. Notice how he sat out Sunday’s home loss to Denver with a lingering ankle injury. Hmmm. Not too surprisingly, wouldn’t LeBron rather start his offseason early than suffer an impending indignity: go 4-0 just to have an outside shot at the No. 10 seeding in the Western Conference, which would require the 31-47 Lakers to win two road play-in tests for the privilege of facing top-seeded Phoenix, which might be headed to a championship?

     Everyone OK with putting LeBron out of his misery? Me, too.

     “Just feels like you can't catch a break," James said after losing to the Pelicans. “No matter what's going on on the floor, it just feels like the ball bounces the other way. Or a call doesn't go in our favor. It's just like, when it rains, it pours for our year. It's just the way it's been going.’’

     Then get out of the way, please. Leave the playoffs to more compelling story lines: Are the Suns and Milwaukee Bucks, both without drama, bound for a Finals rematch? Can the Golden State Warriors fix their whack-a-mole existence? Are the Miami Heat wound too tightly? Will James Harden wreck yet another team in the postseason and either get coach Doc Rivers fired or bolt Philadelphia for another sucker? Are Ja Morant and Luka Doncic ready to make title runs? And aren’t the Brooklyn Nets, with or without a vaccine mandate, ready to discombobulate because Kyrie Irving won’t play sufficient defense to appease Kevin Durant, who asked for this headache?

     LeBron wlll have to watch from home or a distant island. He’s the one who ignored the laws of age and chemistry last offseason, greenlighting a wayback machine that brought a disengaged Russell Westbrook and flawed Carmelo Anthony to the Lakers while discarding the adhesives needed for success. Only two years after raising his life profile to unprecedented levels, winning a championship in the pandemic Bubble while crusading for social justice, James has fallen off the Hollywood sign and is tumbling down the hills toward his 40th birthday.

     In the process, he has provoked the ire of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who kicked James when he was down Sunday. As LeBron stayed in his civvies, Kareem used the occasion of a new award — the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Trophy, honoring the NBA’s Social Justice Champion — to criticize James for stunts such as a crotch-grabbing dance while celebrating a big overtime shot and an Instagram post in which James downplayed COVID-19 in using Spider-Man characters with labels “COVID,’’ “cold’’ and “flu.” Abdul-Jabbar, always the social commentator, was not amused.

     “Some of the things (James) has done and said are really beneath him, as far as I can see," he said in Crypto.com Arena while honoring Anthony with the award. “Some of the great things that he's done, he's standing on both sides of the fence almost, you know? It makes it hard for me to accept that when he's committed himself to a different take on everything. It's hard to figure out where he's standing. You've got to check him out every time.

     “Absolutely, (I have) a higher expectation for him because he understands the issues and has spoken to them quite forcefully and eloquently. I think he has so much going for him in terms of respect and accomplishment and he shouldn't stoop to those moments.”

     For all his robust opinions about politics and life, James doesn’t handle backlash well. Since helping to take down Donald Trump’s presidency by promoting a heavy voting presence, he has made one social misstep after another. Worse, to the chagrin of fools trying to defend his long-futile G.O.A.T. campaign, he made the grievous mistake of pretending he’s above his team’s collapse. “I’m literally having the time of my life right now. The game is such a beautiful thing,’’ he said out of nowhere during the collapse. “Because I couldn’t care less what the narrative about our team is. At my point in my career, I don’t get involved in that stuff. I don’t read about it, I don’t hear it too much. … None of that stuff matters to me, I’m having a blast playing the game of basketball.”

     That would be a rationalization wrapped in a delusion. As basketball’s undeniable Greatest Of All Time always knew, the real blast comes from winning championships AND dominating the sport individually. James is woefully deficient by comparison, bankrupt in a leadership requisite that was mastered by Michael Jordan. LeBron does not make everyone around him better; rather, others tend to regress, if not fizzle out. Say what you want about Jordan The Tyrant, but once he started reaching the Finals, he never stopped stockpiling rings and never strayed from Chicago even when he realized enemies lurked within the front office. James runs at the first sign of trouble in a franchise and casts his wandering eye elsewhere — to Miami from Cleveland, back to Cleveland from Miami, to L.A. from Cleveland — and with the Lakers allowing the likes of New Orleans and San Antonio to pass them into the next round, he’s already plotting his next move.

     “We are who we are,’’ James said glumly of his creation. “There’s not much of a process … it’s frustrating, obviously. But we are who we are; it’s not like trying to figure out something more than that.”

     And how does it feel? This season of disjointed performances, blown leads, close losses and defensive blunders? “Like s—,’’ he said. “I mean, excuse my language, but that’s what it feels like.’’

     Seems he could learn lessons about legacy maneuvering from Tom Brady, who expertly has navigated his last two years. He fled New England, picked the right team in Tampa Bay, won a Super Bowl. Now, though he denies it, there’s reason to think he at least nudged head coach Bruce Arians into retirement. Don’t forget the December night when the Buccaneers were shut out by New Orleans, which led Brady to shout “go f— yourself’’ at Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, now their head coach. Arians was limp and red-faced on the sideline. Brady retired for 40 days, as reports swirled he was headed to San Francisco or Miami, and next thing you knew, he was un-retiring … mere days before Arians called his farewell press conference while younger Todd Bowles was introduced as his successor.

     “We have a great relationship. People got to write s—,’’ Arians protested. “It couldn't be further from the truth.”

     But Brady, who once told James on the HBO show “The Shop’’ that he lies to media “90 percent” of the time, reportedly knew for two weeks that Arians was stepping down. Was he pacified by the Glazer family, owners of the Bucs? “Thank you, BA for all that you have done for me and our team,’’ Brady wrote in his farewell to Arians. “You are an incredible man and coach, and it was a privilege to play for you. Smart, tough, and loyal are a few of the words to describe your style. I will always remember the conversations we had when you recruited me two years ago and all of the things we discussed came true. We all benefited from your leadership and guidance and I'm so proud of everything we accomplished. You were a huge part of the decision to join the Bucs and I'm forever grateful.’’

     The words were mushier than anything he’s ever said about Bill Belichick, with whom he won six Super Bowls in New England. But then, Brady didn’t win the Foxborough power play. If he did in Tampa, of course he’s going to be gooey.

     James should be taking notes. His demise is a debacle, with Abdul-Jabbar offering to help as his L.A. neighbor. “If he would take the time, I definitely got the time," he said. “I admire the things that he's done that have gotten all our attention. Sending a whole school to college? Wow. That's amazing. His thoughtfulness and willingness to back it up with his wallet, you got to give him credit for that. So I'm not throwing stones. I just wish he wouldn't -- you know, some of the things he's done, he should be embarrassed about. That's just where I'm coming from.” Later, Abdul-Jabbar tried to soften his criticism in a tweet, but the damage of his truths already was done.

     Could it be Kareem is a wee bit mad that James is on pace to break his all-time league scoring record? Anyone who knows Abdul-Jabbar realizes he couldn’t care less. “I’m all for him doing it," he said. “There's no envy there. ... Just, with the issues I was talking about, things that really affect the Black community, he should be careful. That's all I'm asking."

     It’s disgraceful how James has spiritually detached himself from a team in crisis, as if he’s above it all, as if forgetting he’s the one who helped light the wildfire last summer when he recruited Westbrook over dinner at James’ house. Imagine Jordan saying, “I’m literally having the team of my life right now’’ as his team careened toward a 50-loss season. Imagine Kobe Bryant saying, “I couldn’t care less what the narrative about our team is.’’ Consider it a reminder of why they’re the true greats of the game, and how James has surrendered to a 21st-century me-culture that values social-media followers and individual records over title. When James made his time-of-my-life remarks, it shouldn’t be lost that he was playing to a Cleveland audience, as he was in his native northeast Ohio during All-Star Weekend, when he first planted seeds about another homecoming, this time with teenaged son Bronny.

     But the Cavaliers, impressively building a new and exciting future, don’t seem to want LeBron this time. So he’ll put out more feelers this summer — Miami, Philadelphia, Dallas, anywhere he can win a title — and see if he can force the Lakers to trade him. Should that flyer fail, he’ll play roster shaman again and plead management to give away Westbrook’s expiring $47 million contract for scraps — if not also trade Anthony Davis, who was supposed to team with James for multiple championships until his body inevitably failed him. Should those whims fail, James would sign with the Lakers for two final seasons and try to win another scoring title — his current motivation, with a brutal week left — while claiming he’s still having the time of his life.

     He sure wasn’t having much fun Friday night, when the Lakers lost their fifth straight, this time to a Pelicans team bound for the play-in event despite the season-long absence of Zion Williamson. James had a chance to push the game to overtime but fired an airball.  “The big picture,’’ he said, “is that it was pretty much a must-win for us and we didn’t get the job done.’’

      Sure, he scored 38 and kept his slim lead over Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid in the scoring race. But pro basketball is filled through time with volume scorers whose teams are losers. This appears to be James’ fate late in his hoops life, as we can expect his ankle to heal long enough for him to play in two of the final four games — which he’ll need to qualify for his second scoring title, making him the oldest NBA player to do so.

     Banished to postseason irrelevance, he is expected to retreat to his trusty smartphone for weeks of social media nonsense, while serious teams contend for a championship. On April Fool’s Day, recognizing an opportunity for a prank, he tweeted that he was finished for the season.

     He only wishes.

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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.