The Los Angeles Lakers had some chemistry issues in 2025-26 before March arrived. It was during that month that LeBron James fully embraced the third fiddle role and allowed Austin Reaves to play more freely; Luka Doncic, too. The Lakers went 15-2 in March and completely changed their season and reputation in NBA circles. Was this ... a contender?
Not quite. Even with LA's Big 3 operating as a cohesive and happy unit, the Lakers still lacked adequate depth around those three to compete with the likes of the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder, the latter of whom swept away the Lakers in the second round, and surely would've done close to equal damage even with a healthy Doncic in the fray.
Despite the Big 3's coming together, and despite LeBron playing fantastic against the Houston Rockets in the first round (he was the best player in that series), there's still a strong argument to be made that the Lakers should take this summer to move on from Bron and officially begin the Luka Era for real, with Reaves operating as Robin, but with James' absence opening the fiscal door for some real depth pieces to come in and make this team hungrier and more athletic on the wing.
Lakers will surely take the predictable path and re-sign LeBron James
If the Lakers are going to lean into the direction of bringing Bron back for another year, let it be for business reasons alone, because the basketball reasons aren't strong.
Hopefully, the Lakers haven't convinced themselves that the increased chemistry between their Big 3 suddenly means that Luka and LeBron are a strong duo, because that's not only very far from the truth, but also an enduring problem for the Lakers in 2026-27 if they run things back with James. Lakers writer Jovan Buha talked about this during a recent episode of his Buha's Block podcast.
The LeBron James-Luka Doncic duo isn't effective, but I guess the Lakers are going to ignore (or accept) this
When you look at star duos across the NBA, LeBron and Luka weren't entirely productive in 2025-26, at least when viewed through the lens of net rating. While Bron and Luka were only slightly above league average in terms of offensive rating, the defensive side of things was even worse.
"LeBron and Luka were the worst two-man pairing this past season," Buha said. "Defensively, a 117.8 defensive rating, which is 1.6 points worse [than league average] ... there's some diminishing returns there offensively [too]."
The Lakers would have a much better chance to survive the terrors of the West if they were to let LeBron walk and add multiple depth pieces around Luka and AR. Running things back with this trio surrounded by scraps ain't gonna cut it, as they say, especially when you take into account how much Doncic and James underperform as a duo.
So, if the Lakers are indeed committed to a LeBron reunion, they'll be doing so while tolerating an obvious and huge problem that will limit their ceiling in 2026-27, leading to another wasted year of Luka's prime as far as true contention is concerned.
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