Anthony Davis was brought over to the Los Angeles Lakers with the expectation that for once in LeBron James’s career he would have to finally take a step back to the 6’11 uber-talented big man who made John Calipari look like Bobby Knight for one season after Anthony Davis performed like Bill Russell to help the Kentucky Wildcats capture the NCAA title close over a decade ago. Anthony Davis is definitely putting the league on notice with an unbelievable 3-4 game stretch where he is performing exactly how we thought he’d perform after being handed a 5-year $204 million dollar contract by the Los Angeles Lakers and Laker fans should be excited. What does this mean for LeBron James who is in a season where he could either worry about chasing down Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the all-time leading scorer and stick it to every Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant fan or assuming he comes back soon enough he can still become the all-time leading scorer while bringing his usage rate down and putting himself in a position where he would be playing off Anthony Davis much like everyone on the Lakers is doing right now including Russell Westbrook.
This bodes well for the Los Angeles Lakers since LeBron James gets to see Anthony Davis carry the Lakers without him from the sidelines and LeBron would be best to fall in line at this point because Lakers fans are the most tough fans around the league and he has received enough hate in his tenure in Los Angeles where if he returns and the Lakers begin to struggle Laker fans will be sure to diminish his legacy as one of the best to ever do it. Can’t leave off the fact that he came to the franchise where Kobe Bryant faced every obstacle possible as a superstar and still prevailed not to mention they were compared much like we would compare a lion to a tiger in the 2000’s. LeBron has never had to sacrifice as a basketball player, he made minor adjustments in Miami due to playing for an organization where sacrifice was essential and Pat Riley showed LeBron James who was boss which lead to him falling in line despite his attempts at bullying Erik Spoelstra early on in his first season with the team. In his return to Cleveland you had a young fan run onto the court begging for him to return to help get them a championship which lead to him returning after opting out of the 4th year of the original 6-year $100 million dollar contract he signed with the Heat.
One thing we do know is LeBron James is locked in with the Lakers for the next 2 seasons and unless he shocks the basketball world and demands to be traded at the trade deadline which I don’t even believe is possibly he’ll have no choice but to get with the program when he returns. Anthony Davis seems to be staying off Call-of-Duty and actually realizes he’ll be 30 pretty soon and also the fact that he has really taken for granted the opportunity to suit up alongside LeBron James who is arguably the best basketball player we have ever seen grace a NBA floor and yes Jordan fans I do feel LeBron is superior even if he’s lost 6 NBA Finals. No matter what is happening around the league or how dominant Stephen Curry,Luka Doncic,or Giannis Antetokoumpo might be looking when Anthony Davis speaks up you just have to listen. He might not play like the best player in the league through 82 games but there is no doubt there has never been a big man like him, he is literally the perfect big man and LeBron James is an Einstein for foreseeing what bringing over Anthony Davis to Los Angeles was going to mean. If Anthony Davis can play at the level he is currently playing at and transition that to the playoffs LeBron’s championship window in Los Angeles might’ve just reopened.
LeBron is no longer the hottest thing moving since sliced bread like he was in Miami or even in his return to Cleveland but he can certainly still be a big part of a team looking to win a championship. As a LeBron fan it has been different to not see him at the top of Bleacherreport’s player rankings prior to the season starting or watching Michael Jordan and Kobe fans create rant videos on why he will never be the GOAT but I’d like to think of this transition for LeBron much like Kareem’s transition when he handed over the keys to Magic Johnson leading up to 1987 where if not for Magic suffering an injury the 1989 NBA Finals they would’ve completed arguably the best 3-peat in NBA history.
Watching Kareem fall behind players like Magic,Bird,Isiah,Clyde,and Hakeem must’ve been different for anyone who watched him dominate the NBA during the 1970’s, I think of it the same way with LeBron where we watched him dominate practically a decade and a half and even with someone of Kevin Durant’s caliber winning Finals MVP over him we never gave Durant the crown as the best player in the game because what he did was like watching The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin battle it out at Wrestlemania and then came Kevin Durant as The Undertaker to help The Rock take down Stone Cold. My analogy is Durant put himself in a situation with another elite player in Curry to beat LeBron which gave his rings no substance at all let alone any merit of him surpassing LeBron as a player. LeBron practically needs to act his age more, we saw you fly around the court and marvel the crowd like a true basketball legend but now he should act like the forgotten old lion who once in a while reminds everyone who he once was.
D-NBA 