Lebron is a Laker. I accept this. I am ok with this. I am ready to cheer for the Lakers next season the same way I have cheered for them my entire life. Lebron is a Laker. I am a Laker fan. These two realities can, and will, live in harmony. I have rooted against Lebron for the last fourteen years, but I must put that behind me now. I have no other choice but to move forward, be excited, and support my team with all my heart. What other choice do I have?
This is a not a reality or a conclusion I came to right away or without weeks of back and forth in my own head. My Lakers fandom has never been tested quite this way before as I have never had the feeling that I had the day I found out that Lebron was joining my team. I was not elated, I was not upset, I was simply confused. We now had the best player in the league coming to our team. The years of being a bottom feeder were likely over, and playoff appearances, maybe even titles, were within our grasp once again. Why wasn’t I more excited? I had heard the rumors and reports throughout last season that the Lakers were the front runner to land Lebron, but until it actually happened, I never really allowed myself to come to terms with exactly how I would feel when it came to fruition.
I have spent much of the last few weeks trying to come to terms with why my brain was stuck in this weird state of flux. I think the confusion ultimately arises out of the conflicting desire to win and regain relevance and the desire to win with guys who you have watched grow throughout their careers. I realize Laker history is filled with examples of winning with guys who did not start their careers in Los Angeles, but this time it just feels different. Shaq had never won anything until he came to LA. He won his first three titles and all three of his finals MVPs with the Lakers. When people think of Shaq, the image that comes to mind more often than not is him in the number 34 purple and gold. He needed the Lakers just as much as the Lakers needed him. Kareem may have started his career in Milwaukee, but he spent fourteen of his twenty seasons with the Lakers where he won five of his six titles and half of his six MVPs. The best comparison to the Lebron addition is when Wilt joined the Lakers in 1968. Wilt had done it all by the time he joined the Lakers for the final act of his career. The only mark against him was that he had only won one title and was widely viewed as not being a winner as Bill Russell and the Celtics continuously got the upper hand when they faced off. Sounds kind of like Lebron against the Warriors right? The difference here was that Wilt was joining up with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, two Laker lifers, who had yet to win a title together. Wilt was coming to help them get over the hump, which he eventually did when they beat the Knicks for the 1972 title, the franchise’s first since moving to LA (unfortunately Baylor had retired at this point and never did get his title). Wilt helped build the Laker brand into what it is today and, maybe more importantly, helped bring Jerry West, a Laker legend in the truest sense, his first and only championship as a player.
This leads me to a key distinction between these legends joining the Lakers and Lebron doing so. In all three prior cases, their championship eras in LA cannot only be traced back to them joining the team, but also to a homegrown Laker star playing alongside of them. Wilt had West, Kareem had Magic, Shaq had Kobe. Lebron has….Ingram? I really like Ingram and think that he has a chance of becoming a really good player in this league, maybe even an All-Star, but I don’t see him becoming Kobe, especially not before Lebron’s prime is in his rearview. I also think that Lonzo has shown flashes of becoming a solid point guard for many years to come, but I don’t see him becoming Magic. And Josh Hart may be summer league MVP, but the logo? Not likely. Wilt, Kareem and Shaq came and helped win titles with homegrown Laker legends and facilitated the creation of the Laker mystique. There is a chance that this incarnation of the team adds to this legacy as Lebron writes the next chapter in Laker lore. But there is also a chance, a greater chance in my opinion, that this Lebron as a Laker era is over in three years and is remembered more for Lebron having dinner with DiCaprio and Pacino and making Space Jam 2 than him leading this young Laker squad to the promised land. I hope that I am wrong and Ingram turns into Durant 2.0 right before our eyes and the duo of Ingram and Lebron takes down the Warriors juggernaut and returns the Lakers to California basketball supremacy where they belong. Only time will tell I guess.
But the thing that really nags at me is that I can’t help but feel a little used. It just seems that Lebron is coming to Los Angeles less to bring the Lakers back to glory and more to start his path toward retirement. He wants to grow his business. He wants to watch his kids play high school ball. He wants to network with celebrities and Hollywood elite. But does he still want to play basketball. I can’t help but feel like next season will feature a lot of “DNP Rest” stat lines for Lebron while he waits to hopefully convince another superstar to join up with him next summer. Is it wrong that this makes me feel a little cheap? Are we now simply a stopping point where stars come to chase rings while chasing the LA lifestyle? I am not looking forward to the day when we are cheering for a new set of superstars every three years as they pass through during the “build my brand” stage of their careers. Or maybe we are already there and I am just being naïve to the realities of the NBA in 2018. Maybe the days of watching guys grow, struggle through adversity, and come out the other side hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy in front of the home fans who have been with them from the start are over. Some may say a title is a title, but I now live in the Bay Area surrounded by nothing but Warrior fans (there are a lot more of them now than there were six years ago, but I digress). I saw how they celebrated that first title with Steph and Klay and Draymond. I also saw how they celebrated these last two titles with Durant. It’s not the same. These Durant titles feel bought and paid for, not earned, and that’s the new reality these fans have had to come to terms with. Warriors fans love Durant, but they LOVE Curry. Durant is an all-time great player, but he will never own a city and an entire fans base’s collective heart the way Curry does. That went out the door the day he left OKC. Lebron will never own LA and the Laker fans’ undying (some may say irrational) loyalty the way Kobe does. It is different. I fear that the Lakers’ quest for relevance will be at the expense of ever feeling again the way I felt when Kobe and the Lakers beat Boston in game 7 of the 2010 finals. That was our team. Sure, there were fresh faces like Gasol and Artest, but there was also Kobe and Fisher, two guys we had been with for fourteen years. We made it through the Smush Parker and Kwame Brown error together and came out the other side with battle scars and an appreciation for how hard it is to win in this league. That’s what made those back-to-back titles so special. That kind of feeling is worth the wait. Lebron taking down the Warriors in game 7 of the 2019 western conference finals would be amazing, but it wouldn’t be the same. Nothing Lebron can do would be.
But then again, I get to watch one of the top five players of all time play for my team. Maybe I should just sit back and enjoy the ride and stop acting like the stereotypically spoiled LA fan who takes being the NBA’s golden franchise for granted. Wouldn’t 29 other fan bases around the league kill for this opportunity to see an all-time great wearing their colors? Some fan bases have never had that chance and we have had it for almost our entire history. And yet I still can’t stop myself from feeling a little queasy at the thought of bandwagon hopping Laker “fans” filling Staples Center with number 23 purple and gold James jerseys on their backs. I don’t know, I guess I’m still confused.
The Jello's Jiggling 