WHEN SUNS SHINE BRIGHTEST, WHY OBSESS ABOUT LEBRON, LAKERS?

The team with the NBA’s best record is an afterthought compared to the Hollywood freak show, with James trying to rescue a dysfunctional team — his creation — with one-man performance art

     Has the mission changed? Is the objective now about generating as much attention as humanly possible, even if most of it is dreadful and humiliating? Does relevance revolve around total buzz quotient more than championship odds? Would a Stephen A. Smith rant about sucking be as impactful as a belated, not-happening escape from the NBA dregs?

     Is dominating the conversation all that matters anymore, even when the bad breath is wretched, even when the once-exalted franchise known as the Los Angeles Lakers have become a bigger Hollywood freak show than Kanye West? Hey, no one’s talking about the Phoenix Suns, right? They lead the league with a 54-14 record, and they still can’t muster a minute on a talk show, despite the presence of Kendall Jenner’s love interest, Devin Booker, who has defied the Kardashian Kurse while chasing a title.

     It’s a rationalization that probably has bounced around LeBron James’ media-savvy head, as he tries to explain away the biggest team stinkbomb of his career while continuing to defy his age as a solo maestro. From his 37-year-old purview, he’s channeling Michael Jordan in his early seasons, when the supporting cast was lame and he still made a historic imprint — there’s no doubt LeBron, with recent bursts of 56 and 50 points, aches to eclipse Jordan as the oldest player to win a league scoring title. The real story is that James hasn’t made a limited supporting cast better, relying on career milestones — the latest: he’s the only NBA player with at least 30,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 10,000 assists — to spray deodorant on the stench.

     This is his way of maintaining next-level relevance, though James was the one who created the stinkbomb by advocating Russell Westbrook as an ill-fitting teammate. He shouldn’t bother wasting time on Justification Island amid his team’s ignominious stumble into the play-in tournament. Because in any analysis, even as the Lakers smother sports news cycles with one dark development after another, this is a tragicomedy that captivates us only because it smears what’s supposed to be the shiniest brand in sports.

     You used to be impressed when the public-address announcer, Lawrence Tanter, boomed his baritone intro in the famed downtown arena: “And now, celebrating their 62nd year in Southern California, 74th year in the NBA, the franchise with 23 Pacific Division titles, 32 Western Conference titles and 17 NBA titles, your Los Angeles Lakers.” Now, the fans cringe and want to sue for false advertising. It all seems as phony as the Botox work and boob jobs of celebrities who somehow still show up, with nothing better to do, and as hokey as the craze behind the new building’s new name: Crypto.com Arena.

     Or The Crypt, soon to be the burial place for the farce of all Hollywood sports farces.

     As the Lakers plunge toward a projected 34-48 finish — which would be the worst by an NBA playoff qualifier since the 1988 San Antonio Spurs went 31-51, thanks to Adam Silver’s play-in farce — they’ve become a masochist’s dream. Every night is a killjoy, unless LeBron interrupts the gloom with a personal masterpiece that wins him “MVP! MVP!’’ chants from home fans who otherwise boo. When the headline isn’t about Westbrook’s wife begging jerks not to chant “Westbrick! Westbrick!’’ as her husband clanks another jumper, it’s about James moping he isn’t taken seriously as a scorer. When they aren’t losing to another bad team, they issue reminders that their roster includes four of the league’s top 75 all-time players — not mentioning that three of the four should be playing pickup ball on Venice Beach.

     And when James and Westbrook aren’t cursing the ticket-buyers who boo them, the front office furiously defends the franchise against the very show-biz culture the Buss family has embraced — from playboy patriarch Jerry to clueless heir Jeanie — as producer Adam McKay mocks the glory days in the fictionalized HBO series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.’’ Not only is the “Showtime’’ era is portrayed as a sex-and-drugs bacchanal, it’s loaded with embellishments that spare almost no one, including Jerry West, who comes off as the angriest man who ever lived. It’s such a ratings-grabbing sham, the team’s longtime trainer, Gary Vitti, walked off the set rather than participate as a details contributor.

     The Lakers have become the Fakers, with LeBron reduced to picking out celebrities to impress in the audience. “I can’t have you in the building and not put on a show,’’ he told Super Bowl hero Matthew Stafford and his wife during his 56-point eruption against Golden State. Now that the fans have stopped razzing him -- prompting James to address one, “What do you know about basketball other than the ball going in or not? Shut yo ass up,’’ — he is trying to win their favor through one of the franchise’s ugliest seasons.

     "Listen, the Laker faithful knows when bad basketball is being played and they know when good basketball is being played. They have the right to any response they want," James said after a tense win over lowly Washington. "They've seen so many great teams, so many great individuals. ... So for me, being a part of this franchise, I feel like I just try to give them an opportunity to have memorable nights as well.

     "Try to give them something to cheer for, give them something to feel good about on a nightly basis, and I know it hasn't been as great as they’d like for it to be this year, but you take the small wins when they come."

     All of which is ass-backwards. When the Suns shamed the Lakers with 17-fast-break points in the first quarter Sunday night, winning 140-111, they had the look of reigning Finalists who intend to finish business this time. But who stole the story line? The Lakers. It wasn’t wise of the ever-injured Anthony Davis, whose uncertain return from a foot injury wouldn’t be enough to help this mess, to say before the game that his team would have beaten the Suns in last season’s playoffs had he not exited with a groin injury.

     “I think we know that. I think they know that,’’ Davis said. “They got away with one. Me going down kind of just changed the whole series.’’

     How dumb was that? All he did was fire up the Suns, who still maintain title-level performances without injured Chris Paul. “Nothing we did tonight was good enough,’’ Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “Unacceptable.’’

     Booker’s post-game response was a lesson in reverse trash-talk. “I just think it’s funny,’’ he said. “If ifs was a fifth, we'd all be drunk. If my auntie had something between her legs, she'd be my uncle. It's a lot of ifs in this game. You look at history along the lines, there's something that comes up for every team during every season. Instead of just taking the high road, you have to make a comment like that, it's kind of funny."

     It will be funnier if the Suns hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The Eastern Conference is an eight-vehicle pileup — anything is possible, from Miami or Milwaukee taking a normal path, or Brooklyn relying on New York City mayor Eric Adams to lift Kyrie Irving’s mask mandate, or Philadelphia either rising with James Harden or crashing. But the West is about the Suns, the issue-riddled Warriors and nascent Ja Morant and Memphis. Phoenix is the best basketball story in the NBA, if only fans and social-media addicts actually paid attention to basketball and not soap operas.

     Other than Paul’s latest boo-boo, a broken thumb that will sideline him until April, the only news the Suns have made is when Booker told the Wall Street Journal he brings a Diptyque candle on road trips. He also said of the Suns winning their first-ever championship, “It’s time,’’ yet it didn’t create a headline. Even a scandal involving owner Robert Sarver, accused of racism and misogyny within the organization, hasn’t resonated. Like most NBA clubs, the Suns suffer from attention neglect outside the big-market centers on the East and West coasts. Asked if his team is unfairly shunned, forward Mikal Bridges fired back on JJ Redick’s podcast.

     “ESPN, Fox Sports, NBA TV,” Bridges said. “Them m—— f---ckers, are they the ones lacing up? Are they playing against us? Nah, I don’t give a damn what they think. If they want to come on that court and play against us, then they’d be more than welcome to step on that court with us.”

     Otherwise, Paul films his State Farm ads while Booker does interviews about his sleep patterns and vitamin intake.

     It’s possible the Suns will meet the Lakers in the first round, but only if LeBron is joined soon by Davis and survives two play-in games to win the No. 8 seed. Until then, all eyeballs will be on James as he tries to overcome the Westbrook plague and continue his epic point spree in his 19th season. This is hero ball in its most grotesque form, but it beats missing the playoffs. Give James his props — he could fake an injury and tank the rest of the season, but he prefers life as a one-man gang.

     “Just always trying to stay present," he said. “And when game day is here, I'm here five hours before the game and prepping — prepping myself individually, prepping on what I need to do to help this team be victorious, prepping on everything I can do in my power to try to help this team be as great as we can be that night. So, that's what goes into it."

     Said Vogel, whose shaky future depends entirely on James’ health and point outbursts: “The thing that stands out to me is, like, the league has never seen a player at this stage of his career do what he's doing. That's the biggest thing that needs to be recognized. It's just unbelievable — the level he's playing at."

     Don’t forget, through the slobbering, why that plateau of play is required. James whiffed badly in urging the front office to blow up the roster and trade for Westbrook. The project has become such a circus, McKay couldn’t make it up. Westbrook said his wife and three kids no longer attend home games. “I don’t want them to hear people calling their dad nicknames and other names for no reason because he’s playing the game that he loves,’’ he said. “It's gotten so bad where my family don't even want to go to home games, to any game, and it's just super unfortunate, man. It's super upsetting to me.

     “It really kind of hit me the other day. Me and my wife were at teacher-parent conferences for my son. And the teacher told me, 'Noah, he's so proud of his last name. He writes it everywhere. He writes it on everything. He tells everybody and walks around and says, 'I'm Westbrook.' ... And I kind of sat there in shock, and it hit me, like, 'Damn. I can no longer allow people (to smear his name).’’ Westbrick,' for example, to me, is now shaming. It's shaming my name, my legacy for my kids. It's a name that means, not just to me, but to my wife, to my mom, my dad, the ones that kind of paved the way for me."

     By drawing attention to the verbal abuse, Westbrook only opened a door for defenders and critics. Magic Johnson, who once ran the front office before accusing successor Rob Pelinka of backstabbing him, weighed in as always on Twitter: “Laker Nation, it’s our responsibility to come together and support Russell Westbrook and his family. Threats and attacks on the Westbrook family are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated. There’s no place in sports for this type of behavior, period.”

     Only three days earlier, of course, Johnson had slammed Westbrook on ESPN. “Young man, you’ve got to know that there was expectations when you called LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and said you want to be a Laker. And Kobe (Bryant) said you were the guy. So you know you had to come here, knowing that it’s about championships when you put the purple and gold on. Quit battling the press, take ownership and accountability and say, ‘Hey, I haven’t played well but I’ve got a chance to turn it around.’ I’m tired of excuses. It’s time to take ownership and say, ‘I’ve been playing poorly, but hopefully I can turn it around.’ ’’

     Meanwhile, in the desert, Suns fans are just waiting for the playoffs.

     “I feel like the world will see when the time comes,” center JaVale McGee said. “But we’re not begging for it, either (national attention). We’re gonna keep our heads down and do our work. That’s who we are and what we do.”

     Thanks for clarifying the mission. For a while there, I thought the league standings were determined by hype.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “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.