Los Angeles Lakers: Missing the playoffs could taint LeBron’s legacy
The Los Angeles Lakers missing the playoffs this year will almost definitely taint the legendary legacy of LeBron James
Entering the final month of the NBA’s regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers, in year one under LeBron James, are 4.5 games out of the 8th and final playoff spot in the Western Conference standings.
Per FiveThirtyEight, the Lakers currently have just a seven percent chance of making the playoffs. I’m not probability expert, but I tend to lean that having a seven percent chance of making the playoffs with just a month left in the regular season can’t be great.
Even less so considering that this team is still missing Lonzo Ball, and there’s no real timeline on when he’ll return.
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Since LeBron’s return from injury, in which he missed nearly 20 games, the Lakers are only 4-8 and are coming off a horrific loss at the hands of the Phoenix Suns. Overall, since their huge win over the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day, the Lakers are just 19-19.
They’ve been average in a conference where you can’t get away with being average if you want to make the playoffs. The LeBron injury certainly hurt. He missed nearly half of those games, and really put this team behind the 8-ball when it came to their playoff chances.
Nevertheless, I don’t think history will remember that kindly. LeBron missing the playoffs with the Lakers would be a colossal hit to his legacy – no matter what he says. At 34 years old, still in his prime, LeBron missing the playoffs would be a huge failure.
It might be the biggest one of his career, depending on how you view his overall course load. In fact, it’s actually quite rare for NBA superstars to miss the playoffs outright. The Big Lead wrote on this subject a few days ago, and listed just five superstars to ever miss the playoffs during their primes.
The list of five included Dwyane Wade, Charles Barkley, Dirk Nowitzki, Hakeem Olajuwon and Kobe Bryant. Still, I believe most would have LeBron ranked a good amount ahead of each of these players in terms of all-time rankings.
Once he started making the playoffs, Michael Jordan never missed them – until he made a return at the age 38 with the Washington Wizards.
Even though we all knew this was going to be a process, and they certainly didn’t have the talent that some of the other teams in the West currently have, LeBron missing the playoffs with the Lakers this season will go down as one of the biggest failures by an NBA superstar.
The Lakers have a big game Monday night, facing off against the Los Angeles Clippers. They could begin to close the gap and go on a tear to clinch one of the final two playoff spots in the Western Conference.
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However, you can’t help but admit that no matter how this season ends for LeBron, short of making a magical run during the last month of the season, this year will be a stain on LeBron’s legendary career.