Sinking Lakers must throw LeBron James and Anthony Davis overboard

Columnist

Dec. 9, 2024 4 AM PT

Dear LeBron, … ask out.

Dear A.D., ... follow him.

This is my Christmas wish for a Lakers franchise that has lost the town to the Dodgers, lost the season because of a lousy roster, and just lost by 41 points to Pat Riley.

After a quarter of the season, the Lakers are no better than a bottom seed in the Western Conference, surely headed for a third consecutive appearance in the play-in tournament, seemingly destined for a second consecutive first-round knockout.

It’s over. Already. There is no hope. Again. With no first-round draft pick and suffocating salaries, they might not be any better next year. Really.

Amid a 3-7 skid that was tempered only briefly by a 107-98 victory over a horrible Portland Trail Blazers team Sunday, there is dread and desperation among the Lakers masses, which has led to two legitimate questions somebody in the organization should be asking.

Does LeBron James really want to end his career mired in mediocrity? Does Anthony Davis really want to spend the rest of his prime in the shadows of irrelevancy?

With the Lakers’ slide rolling into a Dec. 15 landmark — that’s the date when teams can first trade players such as James who signed new contracts last summer — the timing is right for the most obvious truth.

The best way the two leading Lakers can help this team is to willingly leave it.

If James relents on his no-trade clause, the Lakers can send him to a contender for one last hurrah.

If Davis gives his approval — the Lakers don’t need it and could trade him today since he signed his contract in 2023, but they would want it because that’s how they treat superstars — the Lakers could send him somewhere that can give him a chance at another ring before his body breaks down for the last time.

In both cases, the Lakers could receive enough assets to begin a rebuilding project that their weary fans would surely support.

Anything is better than this.

They have a bright new head coach who has handled himself better than predicted by this critic, but JJ Redick’s 24-game record is one game worse than Darvin Ham’s first 24 games last season.

They have arguably the greatest player in the history of the sport, but the 39-year-old James is finally showing his age with spotty offense and no defense and the 485th ranked plus minus rating — minus-129 — in a league of 499 ranked players.

They have arguably one of the five best big men in the game, but Davis doesn’t play like a big man, hasn’t embraced Redick’s goal of making him an MVP, and still generally shows up only every other night.

They have a couple of good young shooters in Austin Reaves and Dalton Knecht, but neither plays much defense and neither has the tools to lead a championship team.

And after all that... they have nothing.

They have a bench that was outscored by 48 points in Atlanta, a defense that refused to guard anyone on the 134-point scoring Miami Heat, and a veteran core that nonetheless was psyched out in the usual collapse against Denver.

They played so poorly against Miami last week that Spectrum Sportsnet analyst Robert Horry — one of the most clutch players in NBA history — delivered a memorable diatribe in which he said the Lakers were playing like a team trying to get its coach fired.

He even repeated the, “1-2-3 Cancun” line, mimicking Nick Van Exel’s infamous ode to quitting.

Then they made so many mistakes in the final moments of the ensuing overtime loss to Atlanta — including forgetting to guard Trae Young when he hit his game-winning three — that afterward the disarmingly honest Redick openly struggled to describe it.

“Left him open, so,” he said of that final shot.

LeBron James speaks into Anthony Davis' ear during a game.

They’re every bit as frustrating as last season, with an opportunity to only get marginally better.

Sure, they can give D’Angelo Russell away, but for what? Yeah, they can trade Reaves and Knecht, and that might bring them a decent two-way player, but that’s not going to bring them significantly closer to a championship.

The heat is surely on basketball boss Rob Pelinka — they’ve fired three coaches under his watch, who is left to blame? — so if he wants to fight back, this is how he can do it.

Don’t stand pat. Don’t try to plug leaks. Heed the recent warning from James.

“We just got to just not drown,” he told reporters.

Yet a team weighted down by James and Davis’ contracts is underwater already. The trick for Pelinka is in convincing the two stars that there is a way they can come up for air.

James has to realize he’s done everything he set out to do here. He won a championship. He broke the scoring record. He appeared in a game with his son. There’s nothing left for him here, other than spending his final days entertaining fans who will still never consider him a true Laker.

Can you imagine the drama of James joining a veteran team as its missing piece and chasing one more championship? By leaving Hollywood, he would create his own Hollywood.

Davis, on the other hand, has much left to accomplish, but he has to realize it’s not happening here. Even if James is traded and Davis stays, the Lakers won’t be able to acquire enough talent to build around him. He could spend the remainder of his career here as an underachiever who couldn’t stay healthy, or he could go elsewhere and be a reborn savior.

LeBron James sits on the bench next to Bronny James.

As entertaining as they’ve been here, the prospects of watching the Lakers evolve without James and Davis are scintillating. It would be cool to see how young malleable players could connect with Redick, a rookie with no head coaching experience whose hiring was initially ripped here.

So far, he’s been solid. He’s seemingly scheming this team into a position to win — lots of teamwork, lots of pace — but they just don’t have the breadth or depth to pull it off. He also gets high marks for early accountability: witness his postgame presser after the horror of Miami.

“I’ll take all the ownership in the world,” he said. “This is my team and I lead it and I’m embarrassed.”

The problem with that statement is, this is not yet his team.

It’s LeBron James and Anthony Davis’ team, and it’s time for them to give it up.