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LeBron James To Lakers Won’t Bring NBA Title To Los Angeles, Should Have Went To Warriors

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LeBron James signing with the LA Lakers for 4-years and $154 million will not bring an NBA Title to Los Angeles. LeBron James smarter move would have been to join the Golden State Warriors. At Dub Nation, you and I and everyone could just pencil in “Golden State Warriors” for a three-peat, and give Mr. James his third ring and second in three years. Paring LeBron James and “The Hampton Five” of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, and Kevin Durant, would have scared the living crap out of the NBA, pissed off Stephen A. Smith, and made Charles Barkley cry.

But no.

LeBron James paid no attention to my tweet urging him to go to Golden State….

And went on to La-La Land, anyway, and even kept low key: no press conference or tweet, yet. Regardless, LeBron James his Twitter World Wide Trends for something like the thousandth time, and the announcement that he was joining the Lakers had some talking NBA Championship for LA.

According to Cool Media, The Las Vegas oddsmakers have the Los Angeles Lakers as the second favorite behind the Oakland Warriors (as I like to call Golden State until they move to SF) to win the 2019 NBA Finals. Here’s the list of the top five favored NBA teams:

Golden State Warriors +110
Los Angeles Lakers +325
Boston Celtics +400
Philadelphia 76ers +600
Houston Rockets +750
Oklahoma City Thunder +2500

Notice something? Three of the top five teams are from the Western Conference – that, alone, spells trouble for the Los Angeles Lakers. But the biggest issue of all is that LeBron can’t do it on his own.

Look, while it’s true that LeBron James has went to the NBA Playoffs with an estimated 75 different NBA Players, he’s not so good enough that he can will a team to a title with substandard players. While there’s a powerful argument to make that Mr. James almost did it with the Cleveland Cavaliers this year, the fact is, he didn’t and the Cavs got swept by the Warriors. As great as LeBron James is, neither he nor anyone else can’t escape on fact: he’s 33.

LeBron James is just two years shy of the age that most NBA Players retire, and his Lakers contract is for four years. This year, he had to will himself to take over where other players (like J.R. Smith) failed him. He’s human and only has so much gas in the proverbial tank. That’s why joining the Warriors would have been the better option, assuming it existed. If it didn’t, Mr. James should have begged The Hampton Five to make salary room for him. Here’s why.

With the Warriors and their “Strength in Numbers” approach (which has a double meaning, if you think about it), LeBron James would have a role to play and somewhat less playing time overall. But in that job, he would have made more money per minute, and remained physically fresh through a gruling NBA 2019 campaign.

Moreover, although I’ve not seen the actual data, Mr. James “Estimated Possession Value” (sometimes called “Expected Possession Value” or an “estimate of the real time expected value of an NBA possession”, more street simple in my language: will the team score this time down the court, or not, and why?) has to be already off the average charts. But what if he had less playing time and more confined role, whatever that is?

Some NBA Fans on my Zennie62 on YouTube Livestream show insist that LeBron James ego is too great to fit within this kind of Golden State Warriors approach to basketball. My retort is that if James ego was that great, he would not be ranked 12th all time in the NBA for all time assists. So, I’m not buying that. I hold that James would have done very well at Golden State, more because he would be playing with his business friends Kevin Durant and Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala. Plus, there are indications Mr. James game will be data-directed in Los Angeles, anyway. How he adjsuts to that with that new team and coach will be the big X-factor in all of this. And that gets to my final point, for now.

LeBron James is going to a new team with players he did not directly hand pick to join him, and to the Western Conference, unlike in the case of Miami and Cleveland. This seems more like a move to help the LA Lakers franchise value, and maybe, hopefully, pick up a ring along the way. Many fans are sure the featured NBA Christmas game will be LA versus Golden State, and why not?

Sure, the Lakers will get a home win against The Warriors, but then they always do. What the Lakers will not do is win the 2019 NBA Finals. That team is too new, and the Western Conference is now way too stacked with excellent challengers – and at the top of the list is the Golden State Warriors LeBron should have joined. Mr. James could have been a great SF Bay Area venture capitalist, learned from Warriors Owner Joe Lacob (who is one) and invest in up-and-coming startups, like The Hampton Five does, but no.

He went to La-La land.

Stay tuned.