WILL LEBRON, WHOSE LAKERS “SUCK,” DEMAND A TRADE TO A CONTENDER?
Suffering a losing season is hellfire for James, who stalks coach Darvin Ham as a dismissal candidate while the Clippers perform like contenders and teams such as Dallas and Miami might eye him
On his next birthday, LeBron James will turn 40, without another championship and no postseason experience beyond a possible play-in event. When he says the Lakers “just suck right now,” he senses it’s a season-long plague. His warnings are focused on his coach, Darvin Ham, who only last month won a punchline called the In-Season Tournament but suddenly is on LeBron’s diminished-means list.
That includes Frank Vogel, who won an NBA title in 2020, and before him, Luke Walton, and before him, David Blatt in Cleveland, and before that, Erik Spoelstra in Miami, who had to be saved by Pat Riley before he was jettisoned. In doubt, James always points at the coach and aims to fire him. He knows the best teams in the Western Conference are the defending NBA champions, the Nuggets, and the kids in Minnesota and Oklahoma City, along with an oncoming crew from down the hallway, the Clippers, who finally eye glory in the year they open a new arena.
Who knew James Harden truly would become a self-proclaimed system — and not the problem for a change — and grow as a bigger Los Angeles attraction than the Lakers? “They’re nowhere to be found. Like, literally, nowhere to be found,” Harden said of his critics as his team, including Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, cruise to 14 wins in their last 16 games. “You knew this was gonna happen. You know what I mean?”
And here is James, realizing everything he built in Hollywood hardwood is fading fast. He won his fourth title in the wilds of the pandemic, a long time ago, without a downtown parade. He can’t take losing two more seasons if, by chance, son Bronny slowly matures into a potential NBA player he someday could play with. He wants his bosses, Jeanie Buss and Rob Pelinka, to find a new coach, with Phil Handy in the assistant’s pool and Doc Rivers prepared to leave ESPN with one phone call. And if they don’t fire Ham? The trade offer suggestions already are rolling in.
To Dallas, where he would play with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
To Miami, where he’d join Spoelstra, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.
To Golden State, where he and Steph Curry would try to sustain hope.
He went so far Friday night to suggest Bronny could play for the Lakers AT THE MOMENT. “He could play for us right now. Easy. EASY,” he told the Guardian.
Anyone who knows James realizes he can’t sit through a 45-loss season with no promise in the future. Physically and emotionally, he showed up after threatening to retire, and he has watched a healthy Bronny start his USC career off the bench. Next season, James has a $51-million player option with the Lakers. If the team “sucks,” why would he stay as his career twilight groans? He wasn’t among those forcing Buss to hang an IST banner in Crypto.com Arena, which she did anyway. Rather, he now says of the cheap Las Vegas spectacle, “That was just two games, though. That was a small sample. Everybody is getting so cracked up about Vegas, keep bringing up Vegas. It was two games. We took care of that business … but that was really just two games.”
So if Ham stays and the losing continues, LeBron just might sit and watch his kid at Galen Center. Meanwhile, he will deal with a proud man who doesn’t grasp how the Fire Darvin talk started in recent weeks. He is coaching the Lakers with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. He can’t allow the Clippers, of Steve Ballmer and his $2 billion Inglewood spaceship, take over headlines. The teams play on Sunday night. Think Harden is wowed? Think James doesn’t fear the worst?
“This is the NBA, man. This is a marathon. You have to look at the totality of the picture,” Ham said after the latest home loss to Memphis. “I’m tired of people living and dying with every single game we play. It’s ludicrous, actually. It’s like, ‘Come on, man. This is a marathon.’ We hit a tough stretch. It’s the same team. We played some high-level games a little while ago, and we’ve just got to get back to that. We’ve got to keep the fight, though. We cannot lose our fight.”
They have. “Wearing this uniform, you get a lot of flack, and guys are watching you under a microscope as a team,” Davis said. “You can’t lose your confidence. Can’t be on social media, listening to whatever people are saying. We’ve got to stay together in this locker room and find our way out of it. There’s no help coming. There’s no cavalry.”
Would Doc Rivers help? He failed with the Clippers and the 76ers. He’s 62 and doesn’t need the internal hell. For now, Ham is hearing positive stuff from superiors not named LeBron James. “I'm solid. My governor, Jeanie Buss, the boss lady, and our president, Robert Pelinka — we're all aligned,” he said. “As long as they're not saying it, I guess I'm good. Which I know how they feel about me and the situation we're currently in.”
But he also wondered about The Athletic website, which employs insider Shams Charania to keep too-secret tabs on James and agent Rich Paul. Ham knows how the almighty picture works. “It reminds me of when I used to watch ’60 Minutes’ with my father in the '80s. And one particular show they were talking about La Cosa Nostra and the mafia and these guys were starting to go to trial and their star witness shows up with a black potato sack over his head and shades. And due to fear, the name can't really be released,” Ham said. “And so this seems to be the standard of reporting now for NBA. People on the internet and whatever.”
And Shams. “Not all reporters — I don't want to disrespect anybody in the room — but when you say the source is anonymous by choice and they don't want to put their name on something, but they want to give you the information and then you take the information and now everybody gets a chance to dissect it and spread it all out in their own way, it's kind of disingenuous,” Ham said. “And I wish we would get to a place where people are firm enough to stand on what they're saying and then maybe we can have real dialogue and get to it.”
Please understand that Buss and Pelinka weren’t talking to Shams. The LeBron Camp talked to Shams. Here’s what he does when the Lakers stand 11th, at 17-19, in a conference that cancels No. 11 on April 14. Imagine the thought of having to beat the Golden State Warriors, at 17-18, for the 10th and final play-in spot. The top eight clubs appear established. Houston, at No. 9, is playing well in the conference and at home. The Warriors are dealing with the freakish return of Draymond Green after a lowly 12-game suspension, another hand injury to Chris Paul and shots at coach Steve Kerr from a source close to Jonathan Kuminga.
I speak for America, and the planet, in suggesting this isn’t how we want LeBron James to finish his 21st season in the league. He knows Mark Cuban wants him in Dallas. He knows Riley never would reject another shot. He’s the one who departed Cleveland for Miami, then returned, then came to Los Angeles. Once the LeBron-a-thon fades, he searches standings. If the Lakers lose to the Clippers, the Shamses and Wojs of the world will be dogging Doc Rivers, which would allow ESPN to bring back Jeff Van Gundy … but, no, he’s a senior consultant of basketball operations with the Boston Celtics, who have the league’s best record and might win the championship this season.
As LeBron just sucks.
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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.