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T The Los Angeles Lakers needed to count again, so they had no choice but to convince LeBron James to join their team. The most glamorous franchise of basketball has never made the stalemate. They need a name on the front of the Staples Center to crack the building and 41 nights of LaVar and Lonzo Ball still left them miles from the Golden State Warriors
By signing James, his long nemesis date Lance Stephenson and Warriors Center JaVale McGee On Sunday, the Lakers sold out in a row. They did not buy an NBA title but they got closer much more than they had two days ago. Given the composition of the West, the Lakers are probably the third or fourth best team in the conference and the possibility of an exchange Kawhi Leonard persists.
At worst, Los Angeles now has a team that can make a turn in the playoffs, if not two. Given the recent Lakers, walking in the lottery to then stumble at the bottom of the division, it's a massive update.
But James has been to eight consecutive finals in the NBA. He did not come to Los Angeles to win 48 games a year and overtake the first round of the playoffs. He chose to be a Laker for what will probably be the last four great years of his career to win championships. Whether it's fair or not, he's constantly being compared to Michael Jordan and the ultimate measure of his career for many is how close he can get to Jordan's six titles.
It is said that the two men who managed to convince James to leave Cleveland are Pat Riley and Magic Johnson. Riley, the president of Miami Heat, coached Magic – the current president of the Lakers – and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at four NBA championships in the 1980s. And while Riley won three of his own as Coach and executive in Miami, the roots of Riley and Johnson's success are with the 80s Showtime Lakers and their championship machine.
Leaving the NBA is much weaker, LeBron entered a conference of the West loaded with talent, making it much more difficult for him to keep his final series alive. But it may not be as far away from another championship as everyone thinks. While the Golden State dynasty remains alive and Kevin Durant's new contract ensures that the Warriors will be title contenders for at least another year, Golden State will not be able to keep their team longer. As their coach Steve Kerr has learned in trying to motivate an apathetic team last fall, the will to win again and again is becoming harder and harder to find every year.
Maybe the Warriors will win another title this season a championship race will be more difficult after that. Klay Thompson, for example, will be a free agent next year and given that his father Mychael was an attacker on the last two teams Johnson and Riley Laker as well as a current Lakers broadcast commentator, Klay could to be a perfect fit alongside James in Los Angeles. Not only would he bring the Lakers a great outside shooter but his departure would remove a key piece from the core of Warriors no matter how good Durant, Steph Curry and Draymond Green remain.
Next season, with a bigger salary cap, the Lakers may also sue Leonard (should not we trade for him), and maybe Durant, Jimmy Butler or Kyrie Irving – who was critical for the championship of James in Cleveland. The Lakers of the coming season can only make one or two rounds in the playoffs, but they could be championship contenders in 2019-2020.
There is also this. The Lakers, without Leonard, are a good team. Stephenson gives them an advantage they missed, a relentless defender who annoys the opponents' top scorers. McGee is a qualified center. Lonzo Ball, despite his failures as a shooter, is wonderful to see the whole court. James will make it better. James will also be good for promising young players like Brandon Ingram, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Julius Randle and Kyle Kuzma – should they all stay.
The Cavaliers team that James brought back to the finals earlier this year was not as talented as these Lakers. Remember, too, the Cavs would probably have won the first game of the final without the fault of JR Smith at the end of the settlement. Who knows if a win of the first match in the Golden State arena would have turned the series in favor of Cleveland? the finals would have been much closer.
If James could rattle the Warriors as he had done with the team he had in Cleveland last year, imagine what he can do with a Young but talented group like the one he's got now. The only thing everyone should know about James is to never question his ability to put a team on his back and take it away.
Magic Johnson has delivered again for the only franchise he's ever known. On Sunday, he bought the relevance of the Lakers, a shot to add to the row of championship banners lining the wall of the Staples Center. In a way, you must understand, LeBron James will find a way to add at least one more.
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