This is a tremendous accomplishment…on a terrible team, unfortunately. LeBron James became the first player in the history of the NBA to score over 40k regular season points in a career…despite his Lakers losing 124-114 to the Nuggets.
This really is how LeBron’s Lakers career has gone down in a nutshell.
In spite of getting beaten for another game to drop his and the Lakers Western Conference standings even further, LeBron James had a record-breaking performance in the Lakers 124-114 loss to the Denver Nuggets as he became the first player ever to score over 40,000 regular season points. And, as I said, the story of LeBron James and the Lakers can be narrowed down to those two contrasts: individual greatness and team disappointment.
This really is typical of the Lakers and LeBron James.
On the one hand, LeBron James has an amazing performance with his 26 points (lead all Lakers and finished only 2nd to Nikola Jokic’s 35 points), 4 rebounds, and 9 assists as he became the first player in NBA history to score 40,000 points in the regular season (he now has 40,017 points). Yet, on the other hand, the Lakers threw away a 66-58 halftime lead to not only get blown out 66-48 in the 2nd half and lose 124-114, but also now be shoved right back into the 10th seed in the West.
Yes, in the first days of March, the Los Angeles Lakers are sitting in 10th place in the Western Conference. A Lakers team that has had LeBron James AND Anthony Davis for 54 and 58 games, respectively, this season is on pace to finish in either the 9th or 10th seed in the West with a 42-36 record (or there abouts).
It’s insane how awful this Lakers team is despite their two franchise superstars being on pace to play in the greatest number of games this season in their, respective, Lakers careers!
Again, I don’t want to take away from this achievement by LeBron James as surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record points total was one thing, but to completely eclipse it and score 40k points (only Karl Malone and Abdul-Jabbar have 40k points in both the playoffs and postseason, while LeBron is now a season away from reaching 50k in that category!) in the REGULAR SEASON ALONE is something else entirely.
There’s no question that LeBron James is the greatest all-round scorer the NBA has ever seen and probably will ever see for a long, long, long time, and he has more than proven his status in the Mount Rushmore of NBA legends. But, back to the present day, his…well, failure with the Lakers is something that is going to stain his Hall of Fame legacy a little bit.
Sure, he won the bubble title with the Lakers in 2020 (and they did have the best record in the NBA going into the playoffs as AD has pointed out) and reached the Conference Finals last season but look at the totality of LeBron’s Lakers career.
He’s won a division title once (2019-20), he’s only won 50+ games with LA once (2019-20), he’s finished in the bottom half of the NBA playoff picture 4 times and this year is going to be his 5th in 6 seasons, he’s missed the playoffs twice and is probably going to need the Play-In tournament to make it this season, and he’s seen three head coaches come in during his tenure.
That’s…bad. And especially so for a player who reached 4 straight NBA Finals with the Cleveland Cavaliers and formed a mini dynasty with the Miami Heat in the decade prior to joining the Lakers.
So, even though I applaud LeBron for achieving this tremendous accomplishment, the nature of the game in which it was finalized just further puts the general failure of LeBron James’ tenure as a Lakers player under a spotlight.
Images Source: Featured Image:
