LeBron James has spent seven seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, and he only has one championship to show for it. While many players never led a team to a championship, many of the all-time Lakers won multiple titles.
With his Lakers tenure likely coming to an end soon, many are questioning if James’ legacy with the franchise is one to be proud of. He’s led the team in the playoffs in five of seven seasons, but three of those playoff runs ended in the first round.
One person who thinks James’ Lakers legacy isn’t anything to be happy with is Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy, who ripped the future Hall of Famer in a rant.
“I will say this — LeBron James is one of the greatest losers in the history of the Lakers organization,” Portnoy said on “Barstool Rundown.” “He quite literally has never won anything. He’s going to go back to that bubble, and boy that bubble saved his life. His Lakers teams have not been a threat to do anything. He’s been a total bum, a total failure. He’s ruined the franchise — he forced them at gunpoint to draft their kid. He, to then be like, ‘I’m mad.’ All they’ve tried to do is accommodate him, and they’ve made a mockery out of a once proud franchise.”
Lakers Were a Sinking Ship Before James Came
It’s easy to look at James’ time with the Lakers as a failure, but the context matters. Before he decided to sign in 2018, Los Angeles had missed the playoffs for five straight seasons and was consistently one of the worst teams in the NBA.
The Lakers also didn’t seem to have any vision, and while many of the young players on the pre-James team have gone on to have productive NBA careers, none of them have developed into superstars. It’s entirely possible that the Lakers would still be NBA bottom-dwellers if it weren’t for James coming to the team.
Is James About to Play Final Season?
While there are rumors aplenty about where James might play next season, not enough people are talking about the fact that he’s 40 now. It’s on the board that he’s planning to play just one more season before walking away from the game.
ESPN’s Dave McMenamin believes that there’s at least a chance that he’s ready for his farewell tour.
“I think we have to start thinking about this could be his last year in the league,” McMenamin said recently. “[James’ agent] Rich Paul told me there was no extension talk, because they didn’t ask for an extension. They didn’t broach the subject. Now, you could say, why didn’t the Lakers offer it? Sure, you could. But Paul’s point to me was this wasn’t a point of tension. It’s not something that they were pursuing. So I think you look at it as, yeah, there’s a very limited time remaining in his career. We kinda already knew that. We knew that, basically, since he reached 20 years in the league, he’s gone into every offseason contemplating retirement.”
James continues to play at a high level, so he might not be ready to announce his retirement plans yet, but it’s almost certainly coming sooner rather than later.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post LeBron James Ripped as ‘Total Bum’ Over Lakers Tenure appeared first on Heavy Sports.