by Has the reign of King James finally reached its conclusion?
Last night, the Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Phoenix Suns, 113-100. This closed out the first round NBA Playoff matchup between the two teams, with the Suns winning the series 4-2. The Lakers loss marks the first time in LeBron James’ career that he hasn’t made it past the first round of the NBA Playoffs, when his team qualified for the postseason.
Out of the 18 years that LeBron has played in the NBA, he has made the playoffs 15 times. Essentially, King James is synonymous with playoff success. He dominates his competition so much that it has become commonplace to see him put up a triple-double in a win. However, this year, LeBron has fallen short of his impressive standard.
The NBA Playoffs started out rocky for the defending champion LA Lakers. The result of numerous regular-season injuries for the star-studded duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the Lakers were the seven seed in the Western Conference. Therefore, they were required to attend the Play-in tournament; a new implementation by the NBA in which the seventh and eighth seeds play the ninth and 10th seeds to see who moves on to the postseason.
While LeBron and the Lakers defeated the nine seed Golden State Warriors, it was a tooth-and-nail battle. In the end, Los Angeles narrowly scraped by with a 103-100 win over Stephen Curry and his injury-riddled team. Thus, King James and LA were matched up to the two seed Phoenix Suns in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
Phoenix took the first game in the series, 99-90. It looked like the Play-in game took a toll on LBJ as he couldn’t get much going with his co-star Anthony Davis. However, King James quickly bounced back with a 23 point performance in a 109-102 win over the Suns. Keeping the momentum going, LeBron, AD, and Dennis Schroder put up 20 or more points each to get a 109-95 win over a lackluster-looking Phoenix group. The momentum would quickly switch directions throughout the next few games.
Phoenix began to show resilience and thoroughly dominated the next three games of the series, which resulted in their advancement to the second round of the NBA Playoffs. To aid the Suns in this endeavor, Anthony Davis’ injury-prone nature began to resurface during game four of the Phoenix-Los Angeles series. In game four, AD logged a measly six points in 19 minutes for the Lakers. Davis didn’t play in game five and lasted only five minutes in the series-ending game six loss.
Even with injuries hurting the Lakers chance for advancement, King James put in courageous efforts to carry his team on his back. He scored 25 points in game four, 24 points in game five, and a strong 29 points in game six.
It’s clear that, although LBJ is still one of the best players in the NBA, he can’t take absolute control of a game like he used to. His age is slowly creeping up on him and will only decrease his athleticism in the future.
At this point in his career, King James must rely on the cast around him. Anthony Davis, with his constant injuries, might not be enough for LeBron to go deep into the NBA Playoffs. The NBA offseason will prove vital for both the Los Angeles Lakers and LBJ if they want to reclaim the NBA Championship in the years to come.
Will the Lakers make a splash trade for another high-quality superstar? Will they be able to land a star-in-the-making in the NBA Draft? Whatever the solution is, LeBron James needs someone to pass his highly-coveted crown to.
With superstars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, and Joel Embid taking the league by storm, perhaps it’s time to crown a new king of the basketball world.
