LeBron James is one of the greatest basketball players to ever touch the NBA hardwood and fans of the Los Angeles Lakers have been blessed to have watched such a dominant version of James this late in his career.
We definitely begin to appreciate what James does night in and night out when we don’t have any basketball to watch, as while the NBA is going on, you kind of become numb to LeBron’s greatness and what he is bringing to the Lakers each and every night.
Say what you will about where he stands on the all-time rankings but LeBron is one of the best to ever do it and luckily, we have gotten to see some vintage performances out of him in Los Angeles. With us desperately missing basketball, we decided to break down LeBron’s five most impressive games from the 2019-2020 season.
5. LeBron James drops 19 and 19 — Orlando Magic at Los Angeles Lakers, January 15, 2020
LeBron’s impact on the Los Angeles Lakers winning or losing a game had a big impact in making these choices. Just stuffing the box score in a blowout win over a bad team was not enough to get on this list, as we have seen him do that time and time again in his career.
With that being said, it might seem counter-intuitive to include a loss on this list, as the Lakers lost to the Orlando Magic by one point on January 15. However, LeBron did something that he has only done once in his career before.
LeBron scored 19 points and dropped 19 assists on the Magic, marking just the second time he hit 19 on both stats in the same game. The other instance occurred in February 2018, where LeBron scored 22 while adding in 19 assists.
He has was one bucket and one assist shy of joining the 20-20 club, which is not as elusive as you may think, as it has happened 89 times in NBA history.
However, only two forwards have ever had 19 points and 19 assists in the same game, LeBron and Rick Barry. Barry scored 28 points with 19 assists in 1976.