LeBron James is leaving LA after eight years. We can say this: He came to the Lakers with a promise to win an NBA championship, and he delivered — even if it was in the pandemic “bubble” year of 2020.
But his career in LA was dogged by the nagging feeling that he kept falling short of his potential.
There are two questions that remain.
First: Where LeBron will go next, after a career that began in 2003, more than two decades ago.
Second: What his enduring legacy on the LA Lakers, and LA itself, will be.
The arc of James’s career is truly extraordinary. He began with the Cleveland Cavaliers, near his home town of Akron, Ohio. But his ambitions were bigger than that underachieving squad, and he left for the Miami Heat.
There, on a team of fellow All-Stars, LeBron won his first title in 2012. The Heat repeated in 2013, proving they were no fluke.
LeBron then made amends with Cleveland by returning home and bringing that city, at long last, an NBA championship of its own in 2016. It was a personal redemption, and the repayment of a debt.
When James left Cleveland for the second time, in 2018, it was for the Lakers. The glittering city embraced him as it he were the second coming of Showtime, the team’s storied heyday.
And, in a way, LeBron brought the show. Though he just missed being teammates with Kobe Bryant, who had retired in 2016, LeBron co-starred with an incredible cast. (James and Bryant were Olympic teammates in 2008 and won a gold medal together.)
Somehow, despite all the talent that moved through the Lakers during LeBron’s tenure, the team could not produce more than one NBA title, and often seemed to underachieve.
There were too many egos on the court, and no Coach Phil Jackson to wrangle them toward one common purpose.
LeBron is undoubtedly on the short list of candidates for the greatest basketball player of all time. Yet unlike Michael Jordan, who is still the frontrunner for that distinction, LeBron could not deliver championship-level leadership when it counted.
Jordan took a team of middling players and brought them to his level, at least as a supporting cast. LeBron struggled to win despite being surrounded by some of the best players in the league.
LeBron also dabbled in politics, usually to his own embarrassment. He was vocal in his complaints about America, but silent about human rights abuses in China, the NBA’s biggest growth market.
He did give us the unique spectacle of playoff basketball with his son. Perhaps that will be his fondest legacy in LA: The picture of a father and son, playing together.
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