Los Angeles Lakers’ small-forward LeBron James made his return to the basketball court Friday night after missing the previous five games with a groin injury.
James scored twenty-one points with eight rebounds as Los Angeles defeated the San Antonio Spurs, 105-94.
same time, same place tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/cj52mNRD97
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) November 26, 2022
With the win, the Lakers improve their record to 6-11. According to NBA.com, Los Angeles sits in the 13th spot in the Western Conference out of the 15 teams total. So in other words, they stink.
Once they start playing against good teams, the losses will start piling up.
They still have to play against Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks four times, Chris Paul/Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns three times, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks twice, and the Eastern Conference champions, Boston Celtics twice. To say that this is an uphill battle for the Lakers to make the playoffs is putting things lightly.
Eventually LeBron is going to have to string together monstrous 40-point games and put on ridiculous performances night after night in order for the Lakers to win. He’s the only player the Lakers can depend on to “take over” a ballgame, and at this stage of his career, I doubt that he will be able to do it consistently. Being 20 years deep into his professional career with ten trips to the NBA Finals underneath his belt, I just don’t think James’ has the legs anymore to carry a team to the postseason.
That said, if the self-proclaimed “King” is the greatest basketball player of all-time like he says he is, there should be no excuses for why the Lakers won’t make a sudden surge to the top of the Western Conference standings now that he’s healthy again. James would find a way to get the Lakers into the postseason if he were still as good as he claims himself to be…but something tells me that he won’t.
Even with James back in the Lakers lineup, there’s very little chance that the Lakers will make it to the playoffs.