Report: LeBron’s Impeccable Timing Saved The Lakers From Losing Ground In LA

The Los Angeles Lakers signed LeBron James with one goal: to win the championship they’ve been craving for so long.

If LeBron didn’t sign with the team, they wouldn’t have Anthony Davis at this point. Davis did his best to join the Lakers, and forced his way out of New Orleans. Without LeBron, the Lakers weren’t considered an option.

Without LeBron, the Lakers would have had a worse season. They finished 11 games out of the NBA playoffs with LeBron. Imagine their situation without the king. The Lakers wouldn’t be an attractive landing spot for superstars in 2019.

The Lakers tried really hard to get Davis on the roster. Their first attempt was a complete failure, but the Pelicans agreed to a deal this summer. LA traded most of their talented players to get Davis.

Kawhi Leonard? LeBron-less Lakers wouldn’t have the courage to go after Leonard. Leonard signed with the Los Angeles Clippers, and the team even traded for Paul George.

“If LeBron hadn’t joined the Lakers, and as a result Anthony Davis hadn’t been traded to the Lakers, and no major free agents chose the Lakers in 2018 and 2019, yet the Clippers did remain competitive and in fact a playoff team in 2018-19, and then landed Kawhi as a free agent and traded a bounty for Paul George to become perhaps the leading title contender in the entire league heading into the next few seasons, where would the Lakers be then?

“The Lakers have been dwelling in the cellar for more than half a decade now, while the Clippers have been varying levels of competitive. Now the Clippers are quite possibly the league’s premier team. The key here is that the Lakers too will be good — not as good as the Clippers, in all likelihood, due to depth and defense, but competitive,” Tom Ziller wrote.

“Imagine if the Clippers were shooting for 60 wins and the Finals while the Lakers were scraping together 32 wins and out of the race by January. If LeBron hadn’t chosen LA in 2018, that could very well have been the situation here. And wouldn’t that have been a major blow to the status of Lakers in Los Angeles for the newest generation of basketball fans, either transplants to SoCal or kids coming of sports fandom age?”

It’s interesting to think about these possibilities, but let’s just stick to the current situation in the NBA. LA has a chance to win a title this season.