Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons in a loss to the Toronto Raptors
By Ronald Agers
LeBron James had yet another triple-double. But this one was very different from the others
Lake Show Life warning to LeBron James fanatics. If you can’t deal with the criticism, hit the purple bar below and move to the next page. With that being said, let’s move on.
LeBron James finished the game with 13 points, 15 assists and 13 rebounds, but as Lakers announcer Stu Lantz said eloquently, it was an empty one. LeBron made some plays, but he didn’t have the energy to put the Lakers over the hump like he did in Dallas or in Chicago. He only shot 5-of-15 from the field, while reminding Lakers fans of that masonry convention last year from the free throw line only hitting 3-of-6.
The Los Angeles Lakers need more in the scoring column from James in games like these. 13 points will not get it done. In comparison, Pascal Siakam scored 24 points shooting wildly inefficient from the field (9-25 overall and 1-of-8 from the 3 point line) but had 11 rebounds and 3 huge blocks. He kept competing and his team fed off his energy. The wrong star wouldn’t let his team lose.
Games like this could be trouble for the Lakers. James has been criticized for stat chasing the last few years. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst had an interesting comment on The Jump last week about a possible LeBron agenda. If this is in LeBron’s plans, he’d better cancel them and start remembering the big picture here.
Chasing triple doubles will not help the Lakers make a deep championship run. This agenda might have been the difference in the game on Sunday night. Most will blame Kyle Kuzma (More on that later) or Danny Green (Have fun with him! Zero points?) But superstars have to win ugly games at times. James has done a good job up to this point in the season. In this game. it was Pascal Siakam.