"The staff with the most All-Star appearances in history."
"Reminiscent of the US team". "Who will stop them?". And also: 2nd place in the betting agencies before the start of the season to win the championship.
This is what the weeks before the start of the season looked like from the angle of the Los Angeles Lakers.
This is how they talked about a team that tonight (Tuesday to Wednesday, Israel time) was finally eliminated from the race for the playoffs… Sorry - for the play-in!
With a loss to the Phoenix Suns, which lowered LeBron James' team to a negative 48:31 balance and determined it would finish 11th in the West.
How big is the failure?
Remember how historic was Leicester's championship, which was a relegation candidate and finished 1st in the Premier League?
So such, just the opposite.
Only that unlike Lester, there were quite a few early signs here.
While most of the world was excited, many commentators warned that the team is old, that the squad has clear holes and mismatches, and that an injury to LeBron or Anthony Davis will expose those shortcomings - especially a lack of players who can both score three and keep excellent. Almost no one who is both).
Anthony Davis, Photo: AFP
And really, in the end there were quite a few injuries.
Davis, quite as expected, missed half a season.
Packaging, one of the few that both scores and guards, missed even more than that.
Nan did not play a minute.
And LeBron himself missed 17 games before the All-Star, and five more in the last month.
So what, Davis' half-season, LeBron's 22 games, and some additions to the roster - is that enough to explain the difference between a senior championship nomination and a league bottom-up itch?
The insistence on bringing Ras
Well, there's another part - and it's called Russell Westbrook.
Although last season he finished with a crazy month and a half of 14-14-23 and led Washington to the playoffs.
But almost every commentator pointed to the mismatch between him and LeBron.
What's more, he joined the place with much more suitable options - maybe Buddy the Boy, maybe Damar Druzen.
But it was James who insisted on bringing Russ.
And really the inability of the two to excel side by side stood out all season.
And so, as the season progressed and losses piled up - so did the jokes about Westbrook.
At the same time, when Davis' injury turned out to be serious and LeBron realized that nothing came out of this group, he himself changed focus and instead of leading and making others better, he again began to disperse angry faces and rumors of trades.
He also rested on defense, and on offense concentrated mostly on scoring points, even in Garbage Time.
To continue to approach Karim's peak.
After all, if he gave up team success, why not just throw in a lot and score as much as possible?
Russell Westbrook, Photo: USA TODAY Sports
And so, as LeBron scores a lot and the team loses a lot, we hear more and more of the constant melody that accompanies his career in every re-failure, and that is: that he does not have enough help.
There's a situation where in all of NBA history there's no gang more slandered than LeBron's complementary staff when things go awry.
It's never him.
He always "doesn't have enough help."
Beware of the king's agents
But even if that squad eventually crashed, how is it that in more than 20 games without LeBron, Westbrook actually looks very similar to the excellent player he was just a year ago?
How does this explain that even when LeBron and Davis played together, the Lakers balance was only 9:10?
Was there anything else that contributed to the historic failure?
After all, something else must explain such a big crash.
But the question is what?
Well, many times in life the obvious answer is also the right one.
And if you have a historic player on the roster that everything is done according to his word, then maybe there is also a bit of justice in saying that he concentrated a little too much on himself, and too little on the success of the team?
That the Lakers general gave up the victory in the war in favor of some personal decoration?
Maybe.
Do not know.
Sounds like a reasonable claim to me.
Just be careful who you say it to.
King has agents on every corner.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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