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AP Photo / Ashley Landis
LeBron James looks set to use any criticism from the Los Angeles Lakers as motivation for the 2021-22 campaign.
James asked critics to “keep talking” on Wednesday in a since-deleted tweet and has apparently already taken note of suggestions that the Violet and Gold are too old or injury-prone to compete for their second championship in three years:
Launderer report @Launderer report
LeBron calls out those who doubt the Lakers 👀 pic.twitter.com/V83nXIdJIX
Los Angeles won the 2019-20 title in the Walt Disney World bubble with James and Anthony Davis in the lead, but lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Phoenix Suns last season.
Injury has been a problem throughout the campaign for both stars, and Davis missed one game and games of two more during the Suns Series.
The team wasted little time makeover his roster by adding a number of players including Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Kendrick Nunn, Wayne Ellington, Malik Monk, Trevor Ariza and Kent Bazemore.
Westbrook (32), Anthony (37) and Howard (35) are not really young and James is 36. Despite LeBron’s post, it’s at least fair to be concerned about the ages of many key LA contributors.
Davis is only 28 but has an injury history and only played 36 games last season.
Then there are questions about spacing when Westbrook has the ball in his hands given some of his shooting difficulties, including a career 30.5% three-point clip. How he will adapt to James, who is one of the best players in league history and can create as a distributor or score himself, remains to be seen.
Elite players who use slights – real or perceived – as motivation are nothing new. James has appeared to do this in the past by tweeting things like #WashedKing.
It seems he found more motivation.
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