LeBron James was out for dinner when news his Los Angeles Lakers had traded for Luka Dončić took him by surprise, according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. It is hard to believe that James was blindsided by the news, since the agent he shares with Anthony Davis, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul, was reportedly alerted to the proposal in the days before a deal; but it makes some sense, because this deal is not about James.
This trade was about the opportunity to acquire a 25-year-old perennial MVP candidate at half the cost.
It was not about this season, either. The Lakers are not winning a championship with James making 35% of their salary cap. It will be incredible theater for James and Dončić to share the floor together. If Dončić adopts James’ conditioning regimen, the Lakers will be better for it, but James is 40 years old; he cannot sustain the kind of peak two-way performance they need from his $48.7 million for an entire playoff run.
Which is why the Lakers should trade James now.
The Lakers have been 9.8 points per 100 meaningful possessions worse when James is on the floor this season, per Cleaning the Glass. They have been outscored by 6.5 points per 100 non-garbage possessions with James and without Davis, equivalent to a 23-win team. They owned a bottom-10 defense with Davis, and to that mix they are adding Dončić, whose former team identified defense as reason for trading him.
Dončić and James should make for a spectacular offense. They are two of the greatest playmakers in the history of the game, seeing things others cannot, and when they find each other it will be magical. But no team can build a championship-caliber defense with Dončić, James and Austin Reaves as their top three. Lineups featuring James and Reaves and not Davis have already been equal to the NBA’s worst defense.
The Lakers will target a rim protector before Thursday’s trade deadline. Nicolas Claxton and Robert Williams III leap to mind as possibilities. Either one would cement them as serious playoff threats, though they are multiple pieces away from true championship contention — another 3-and-D wing, another bench guy, the kinds of players you can find when you have not shockingly shook your team midseason.
And still they will pound their heads against this wall: LeBron James is 40 years old, making max money. I hate to harp on it, but consider how difficult it is to trust any one of the league’s best players — Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum, etc. — when a prime co-star is not performing to his level. If Jamal Murray or Damian Lillard or Jaylen Brown were 40 years old, you would not bet on them, either.
Heck, Lillard is 34, and we have blamed his age for the Milwaukee Bucks’ demise. James works miracles, but no man has defeated Father Time. It takes only a moment of watching James to see the toll time has taken. In those moments he gets beat off the dribble or cannot quite beat someone off the dribble or does not help at all on either end. Need we forget James required a 10-day sabbatical before Christmas?
Games like Saturday’s win over the New York Knicks distort our perception of James. We see his 33 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds in a masterful victory (sans Davis), and we think he can maintain it, even though the past four seasons have shown no evidence that he can for the entirety of the playoffs. His 24 points, 9.1 assists and 6.7 rebounds per game belie the reality that he is no longer a cut above.
The redundancies in the skill sets of Dončić and James are cause for some pause. Ideally, adding one ball-dominant superstar to another would give you double the production, but that is not how it works. Only one of them can manipulate a defense at a time. James is shooting 40% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers, but is that really what you want from an all-timer? And would this particular all-timer accept that role? JJ Redick will put them in actions together, but there is no equation here where one plus one equals two.
If an overlap in their abilities diminishes returns further than the defensive concerns, the Lakers must wonder if James’ contract is a hindrance to where they want to get. And as soon as that happens, they have to trade James, for he loses value with every day that passes. Did we mention he is 40 years old?
The Golden State Warriors have for years gauged the Lakers’ interest in trading James. However, multiple outlets have reported that James will remain on the Lakers through the deadline, but why should he? By this summer it could become even clearer that an even older James cannot carry — or co-carry — a contender. James owns a no-trade clause, but does he want to become a reason Luka cannot win in L.A.?
Instead the Lakers will pretend that pairing one superstar with another inherently yields championships, and when it does not, they will inform us that they needed a full summer to address the roster’s issues. And when that does not work, either, James will be 42 years old, and the Lakers will be stuck holding a depreciated asset, albeit an all-timer, and they will be two years behind on their reconstruction project.
The Lakers have a new face of their franchise, and it is time to build around him. Step 1: Trade LeBron.
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