Road to Revival: LeBron is losing a battle to Father Time


Father Time currently has LeBron James on a leash. 

If you know me, you know how much it pains me to say that. Kids growing up in the ‘90s had Michael Jordan; in the 2000s, they had Kobe Bryant. For me, growing up in the 2010s, I had LeBron James.

Watching LeBron claw his way to the NBA Finals nine times in ten years, it felt like he played with an immortal flair. Through the last decade, LeBron and the Finals were like Ross and Rachel in “Friends” — an inevitable match. 

To see LeBron look so human on the basketball court, so vulnerable, is disconcerting. On some nights, he feels like an afterthought, barely putting his stamp on the game. 

LeBron will still waltz into a 25-6-6 statline, because, even being less than two months away from age 38, that’s how easy basketball comes to him. But it’s a mundane 25-6-6 — opponents don’t feel LeBron anymore, that fear he used to put in their hearts as he barrelled down the lane. “I don’t think I see that spark in Bron,” James’ former teammate Kentavious Caldwell-Pope told ESPN this week. 

As he has aged, LeBron has combatted his dwindling explosiveness by becoming a legitimate jump shooting threat, but through 11 games this season, his shooting numbers have fallen off a cliff. 

He’s connected on a measly 17 of 71 threes, including a stretch where he missed 14 straight long balls. The catch-and-shoot numbers are worse — 6 for 32 to start the season. Gross.

When his jumper’s not falling, his only scoring option is to play “bully ball” to the rim, but he is still an elite playmaker, creating looks for his teammates off the drive-and-kick. The only problem is, just like LeBron, basically every Laker also can’t seem to throw a rock into the ocean. Through the Lakers’ first nine games this season, LeBron’s teammates shot 34.9% on 3s from his feeds but only 27.5% on wide-open 3s directly from a LeBron pass.

LeBron looks uninterested and disengaged, and it’s hard to blame him. The roster construction is completely backwards, with the 2-9 record indicative of general manager Rob Pelinka’s missteps. This is not a playoff-caliber team, and LeBron knows that. This season, all he’s playing for is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record — LeBron trails the greatest big man of all time by just over 1,300 points. 

It saddens me to watch one of LeBron’s final seasons minimized to record-chasing over win-chasing, a full year reduced to a short, passing moment of glory. Despite a lackluster start, he’s still LeBron — in the right system, he can still be a number one option on a championship team, and that’s why this lost season hurts so much. 

It isn’t all sorrow and heartache for LeBron, who deserves some of the blame too. He has played himself into this position, signing a questionable two-year extension with the Lakers in the offseason, penciling him in as a member of the Purple and Gold for another two seasons. 

What has Rob Pelinka shown LeBron to warrant the belief that he can put a good team together? How much trust does LeBron have in Anthony Davis to stay on the floor? Is it all just about playing with his son Bronny after one year of college?

The only reasonable conclusion I can come to after pondering LeBron’s extension is that it’s more about life outside of basketball, life in Los Angeles with his wife and three children. Maybe winning a fifth ring is a secondary priority for The King, and that’s completely fair — his career could end today and he’d still arguably be the greatest player to step foot on a court. 

He’s undeniably a winner, in spite of his 4-6 Finals record, so to see him lose regular season games while not even standing a chance just doesn’t feel right. But if his mind is not solely on basketball anymore, if he is not letting these losses bother him, why should I let it bother me, right?

Yet, no matter how awful the Lakers continue to look this year, a small part of me will always cling onto the hope that LeBron will be revitalized once again. 

In 2016, the LeBron-led Cleveland Cavaliers found themselves down 2-0 in the NBA Finals to the record-breaking 73-9 Golden State Warriors. This prompted Colin Cowherd, host of FS1 show “The Herd,” to spiral into a tirade, insisting, “LeBron James is 31, he doesn’t dunk as much, you’re not going to get a 45-point night from him, those days are over… he is not going to chase you down and block you from behind.”

Safe to say, LeBron made Cowherd look pretty foolish, ironically doing the exact things Cowherd said he was no longer capable of, dropping 41 points in Games 5 and 6, as well as arguably the greatest block of all time, chasing down Andre Iguodala in Game 7. 

LeBron could very well make me look foolish for writing this article too. And, to be honest, I really hope he does. Because I’m just not ready for LeBron’s career to be over. 

Sahil Kurup is a junior writing about the Los Angeles Lakers and the endless drama that follows them. His column “Road to Revival” runs every other Friday.