LeBron James has a massive 39 pts, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists night, yet like most games this season, he fails to take the Lakers through.
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No enthusiasm of the Playoffs nearing, no effort to get much-needed victories, nothing in the game that could prove it’s a team of ultra legends playing together for almost a year. Nothing particularly new the Lakers had in store when they challenged a Pelicans team that had the same record (31-43) as them before Sunday.
Even there was a scoring record that was up for grabs when LeBron James took the court in New Orleans against the 10th best team in the West – the youngest player to score 37,000 points. So, it was pretty much the same day for LA fans that they have been witnessing for a very long time.
Obviously, King James did break that record and did so midway through the 2nd quarter. But it’s the Top spot on the All-time scoring list that keeps him going. He did get closer to it by 39 points on the night but failed to get his team a much-needed win to keep them above the Pelicans.
LeBron James makes another huge record
After clinching the record for being the youngest to reach the 37K milestone, the 37-year-old becomes the youngest player to reach every thousand points mark from 1-37, insane.
But even more insane is how this year has turned out for him to be just a year when he’d chase and make records. This team wasn’t half as bad even without AD for the most part to be this bad.
Nonetheless, it seems as if James does not have as much interest in making a deep Playoffs run this season as chasing the scoring title and the great Abdul-Jabbar. Last night was the epitome of an example of that.
LBJ got his 35-odd points, then kind of checked out of the game
The Purple and Gold team had a 20-point lead going into halftime, which itself would have come as a surprise to many, but they became their usual lifeless self quickly after the half. As they gave up 41 points in the third, then the Pelicans outscored them by 16 points in the fourth and stopped them to just 14.
LBJ already had his quota of 35 points entering into 4th, he couldn’t do much to keep the 4-point lead they had. He went cold and scored just 4 points in the fourth quarter and scored no points in the last 8 minutes or so.
There was an injury scare-through, which looked pretty bad for him to carry his team through the 2nd half.
They are now 5-15 in their last 20 games and hold just a one-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs for 10th place in the West. No one in Laker Nation should be surprised anymore if they fail to make it to even the Play-ins.
As for King James, he is smart enough to figure out if he can’t win it all, why try and further risk his fitness? But if he is really doing that his image, teammates, and fans all are at stake, he must keep that in mind.
