Too many times in his career, we've questioned his leadership. We've wondered if he's too tough on his teammates, too demanding, too harsh. We've wondered if a team was quitting on him.
It happened again on Monday night, when the supposedly playoff-pushing Lakers lost their second straight and fourth in five games, this time to a hapless Memphis Grizzlies team, 110-105. The Lakers looked lost for much of the game, without energy, moribund. They looked like a team in crisis.
People immediately seized on James as the cause for his team's malaise. We've heard this before: Playing with James is hard, and he's not the best leader (maybe), and not everyone can handle it.
And playing with James is hard. That has to do with who he is as a person, a little bit, sure. He's exacting. He pushes teammates. He demands greatness and won't sugarcoat it with management or, at times, with media if he doesn't think the talent are good enough.
But to say that last night's loss was purely on James' leadership, or that the Lakers are imploding, is silly. These slumps and chemistry dips are normal for an NBA franchise, especially one that has a 29-31 record.
Every team has games like the Lakers do on Monday night. The only thing different about LeBron James teams is that we notice them.
Inconsistent effort is a staple of the NBA. This isn't a knock on the players so much as the reality of the season. There are 82 games, which is so many games. Road trips are long, and when games run into each other on the road, teams struggle. There's a name for them: Back-to-backs, and ask anyone who follows the league regularly how NBA teams tend to do on the second night of a back-to-back.
Maintaining effort throughout every game, at the highest level, is just about impossible. There's a reason playoff basketball feels different than regular season basketball - it is different than regular season basketball.
The Warriors have made this hard to realize because they win all the time, and one of their smorgasbord of All-Stars can pick up the slack when someone is having an off night, but even great teams have inconsistent bumps. And the Lakers aren't a great team. They're a decent team. They just have a magnifying glass on them.
Want to test my theory? Watch the Pistons on the second night of a back-to-back. Watch a non-nationally televised weeknight game between the Knicks and the Suns. Hell, watch the first third of this Washington Wizards season. NBA players are exceptionally brilliant and talented and work incredibly hard, but in blowouts, on long road trips, when a team is struggling, the scenes we saw with the Lakers on Monday night are not uncommon.
Did the Lakers have effort swoons like this last year, before LeBron James arrived? Probably. I have no idea. I didn't watch them, and unless you're a serious Lakers fan, neither did you probably.
Which is why it's so laughable that a rival GM (anonymously) said that LeBron "killed" the Lakers' chemistry. Their chemistry? What does that even mean? How would another GM know? The Lakers finished 35-47 last year. Was that a result of their excellent chemistry?
This is why it will always be impossible to tell if LeBron James teams' chemistry issues are the result of his personality or of the magnifying glass that comes with playing with him. We will never be able to tell. It's impossible to tell.
Does James ask too much of his teammates? Or does he know that playing with him means a near-constant media scrutiny, and he's trying to prepare his young guys for that pressure? Or does that pressure arrive on its own due to the media scrutiny, and he doesn't have to do anything at all to put serious pressure on his teammates? How could anyone ever tell?
Look at the biggest debacle for the Lakers' chemistry this season, one would think: The failed attempt to trade away half the team to acquire Anthony Davis at the trade deadline. What did LeBron James have to do with that, other than being good and having team management want to surround him with other good players?
Media and players can blame LeBron as his name wasn't included in the trade talks, and management might not have the patience to develop younger players when they have James on the roster. But he didn't actually do anything. He just was good, and we paid attention to him.
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