Did the Lakers blow it for LeBron and AD?
When watching the 2024 Paris Olympics, it was hard not to notice that two of the top players on Team USA were members of the Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
While this shouldn’t be too surprising, as the duo were targeted by LA for being premier talents at their respective positions, the fact that they looked so darn good in Paris while their team has largely been irrelevant stateside was not lost on the members of The Hoop Collective, with Tim Bontemps absolutely going off on the Lakers for effectively failing their two stars from a team-building standpoint.
“I think the single biggest takeaway from this whole tournament is that it showed me how terribly the Lakers have been run for most of the past several years where you have LeBron James, and yes, he’s approaching 40, he’s the oldest player in the league, he’s obviously can’t play at this level for 82 games but we saw a couple years ago when he got to the Conference Finals, say what you will about injuries and favorable matchups, or whatever, when he is in moments like this, he still has the ability to turn it up to a really high level,” Tim Bontemps declared on The Hoop Collective. “And they have put such a poor team around him and Anthony Davis, that they have been an afterthought the vast majority of the run and especially the last few years outside of, again, they had some favorable matchups that got them to the Conference Finals one time; otherwise they’ve been a non-factor.”
When fellow Collective member Tim McMahon pointed out that the Lakers really goofed up by not bringing in Kyrie Irving when they had a chance, Bontemps added an example of his own, letting the listeners know that through it all, the Lakers have failed their dynamic duo at every turn.
“You could go back to not getting Mike Conley instead of D’Angelo Russell in that deal; yeah, there are a hundred things you can point to,” Bontemps noted. “The overall point, though, is that LeBron still has the ability to be a difference-making player at the highest level, and with him and AD, it remains unfathomable that this team remains irrelevant, and that’s what they are irrelevant.”
Whoa, interesting stuff, right? Well, wait, it gets even better, as after a minor detour talking about the general lack of respect sent Joel Embiid’s way, all three members of the Collective dug a little deeper into the Lakers’ poor management.
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Bontemps: the Lakers have failed LeBron James and AD
Turning their attention back to AD and King James, Brian Windhorst pointed out how impressive the latter’s stat line was, as few have matched his efforts in Olympic history.
“My grand point on this is if you’re a Lakers fan, and you’re watching LeBron, and by the way, LeBron’s final stats, 14 points, 8.5 assists, I think it’s the second-most assists in Olympic history, I think in total because he played a little more than Jokic,” Windhorst explained. “Now Jokic led in total assists, so maybe it was for Americans; it was the most assists per game for Americans since Chris Ford in 1976. Anyway, 14 points, 8.5 assists, 6.8 rebounds, 1.5 steals, 66 percent from the floor.”
“He was the best athlete on the floor in every game of the Olympics at 39; it’s ridiculous,” McMahon added. “And look, there are two reasons that our network never shuts up about the Lakers’ championship chances: the first reason is because we’re capitalists, and it’s great for ratings because the Lakers are the most polarizing franchise in the NBA. The second reason is because they have an All-NBA duo that has proven they can win a championship together, and that’s why it’s hard to just absolutely dismiss them, but back to your grand point, what the h*ll is happening to the construction of that roster since the bubble?”
Unfortunately for Lakers fans, McMahon is on the money, as the team has only made it out of the first round twice and actually missed the playoffs twice, too, versus two Western Conference title appearances and the Bubble Championship. While plenty has played into why each season turned out the way it did, from failed trades to trades that failed, in the end, Bontemps summed it up perfectly in his autopsy of the last six years of Lakers basketball.
“It’s just a reminder of how much of a disaster that has been,” Bontemps declared.