7. 2018-2019 LeBron’s First Season with the Los Angeles Lakers
When the Lakers signed LeBron James in 2018, he was coming fresh off of 8 straight trips to the NBA Finals and they were coming off of 5 straight missed playoffs. There was good reason to believe James would fix that and carry them on his back to the postseason.
This team included two former number two overall picks in Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball and a decent supporting cast around James to give them optimistic expectations headed into the season. The season got off to a solid start, and they even beat the defending champion Warriors on Christmas Day and were 20-14 when that win occurred.
But in that win tragedy struck and James injured his groin which continued to linger and bother him throughout the rest of the season. This Lakers squad was not built to sustain an injury to their best player and they could only manage a 9-18 record without him on the floor.
That poor record without James in the lineup was a big reason for the disappointment of this season because it showed that the Lakers young core failed to make a leap at all from the season prior. It was the first signal that they had to make some moves to maximize James’ championship window and get him another all-star running mate.
Not only did James fail to reach the finals for the ninth straight season, but his new team also did not even reach the playoffs for just the third time in his career snapping a 14-season streak of reaching the postseason. No one expected the Lakers to continue their playoff drought when they signed LeBron and that is why this season was easily one of the most disappointing of all time.