Los Angeles Lakers: Evaluating LeBron James in crunch time
By Ronald Agers
With the Los Angeles Lakers struggling to start the season, can LeBron James be the closer they need?
The Los Angeles Lakers are now 3-5 after a matchup on Halloween night against the Dallas Mavericks, but closing games have been an issue.
With the offseason signing of LeBron James, a player that has taken his teams to eight NBA Finals in a row, some thought this could be the part of something big. Some even claimed that the Lakers would get to the Western Conference Finals (Not me…that would be Stephen A. Smith). Other thought the Lakers would struggle at the start (Okay that would be me!).
But I don’t think that anyone would think that the Lakers would be struggling quite like this. The Lakers have struggled mightily on the defensive end while Luke Walton is starting to show major flaws by way of strategy and substitution patterns. This one is a quandary that needs addressing…
Lake Show Life has been on top of everything trying to figure out how the Lakers can turn this around and start playing better basketball. It has brought many a spirited conversation.
Nothing like this one…
Out of all of the problems that the Los Angeles Lakers have had, one issue has not come up yet…that is til now.
Who’s going to close out the games when the game gets close?
Before LeBron James comes to mind…think again.
Time after time this season, when the games were close, LeBron James has not stepped up and lived up to the reputation of being the best player on the planet. This is not about being the one to take the last shot. But it is about being aggressive in crunch time and willing your team to victory. This is a trait that Michael Jordan had, Kobe Bryant had and even LeBron’s current boss, Magic Johnson had.
Before you hit the comments section telling me to relax and it’s early…let’s take a look back shall we?