Lakers newsletter: Even at 39, LeBron James remains at the center of team’s future

Hey everyone, it’s Dan Woike and welcome to the first Lakers newsletter of 2024, a check-in on a team that’s over-stuffed with resolutions.

Having spent the last month on the road with the team, I want to try and distill as much of what I know, have heard, have seen and think into an honest conversation about where things stand as of this week.

Things can change quick — they probably will. But for now, this is a snapshot.

Here’s the thing

It all points to LeBron James.

When you wear the crown, and embrace that accessory, there’s really no other logical place to start. The Lakers are here, below .500 and seemingly walking toward the ledge.

“The sky is falling,” one league executive half-heartedly joked on Thursday morning, a day after the Lakers played four embarrassing quarters of basketball that could be categorized as the worst offensive game played by any team this season.

The season, in some ways, feels like it’s hanging in the balance.

If this feels like hyperbole, again, it points to James.

With a team centered around a 39-year-old star, patience is a virtue that can’t be earnestly considered, not if the Lakers are hellbent on trying to squeeze the last drops of title contention out of the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.

It’s what puts everyone on the clock at all times, the Lakers’ 3-9 run under rough circumstances feeling more like 3-19. It’s why, after the Lakers lost to Miami and James exited without speaking to the media, that all sorts of fingers started pointing at the Lakers’ bench, the Lakers’ locker room and the Lakers’ front office.

The reality is when a team has real expectations and is slumping, it feels like the walls are closing in. It happened two years ago during Frank Vogel’s last season with the Lakers (the team never pulled out of the nosedive) and it happened last season before the trade deadline.

And it’s happening now.

LeBron James, drives to the basket during a loss to the Miami Heat on Wednesday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

For weeks, Lakers players have publicly and privately griped about the team’s situation — a floating set of targets from the miserable travel schedule in December, to inconsistent lineups and rotations, to a rash of illness and injuries. And those gripes have included their coach.

If Darvin Ham’s seat isn’t already hot, it’s certainly warming as the Lakers have a critical opportunity in the next month with only one trip out of the state between now and Jan. 29. Any nuanced view of the situation needs to account for Ham and his staff weathering the storm last season only to come together on the court (and with schemes) in series wins against Memphis and Golden State.

Still, his lineup decisions haven’t been popular, with one of the main criticisms being that he simply doesn’t play his best players together (and often) enough.

The team is expected to pursue all sorts of trade options as the deadline approached in early February, the recent stretch crystallizing that the current team (despite claims that there’s enough in the room) isn’t probably good enough to fully compete for a title.

Shot-making and two-way impact must be at the top of the shopping list, but unfortunately for the Lakers, those are skills everyone wants. Their tools to making a deal, while not non-existent, are certainly limited, forcing them to ask themselves whether or not the options available to them move the needle significantly enough to make a trade worth it.

All of this — the coach, the roster, the future — is tied to James, the ultimate ticking clock. The Lakers could, of course, simply be a team that needs to get into the tournament before unleashing James at full speed. They could, also, need to make big changes.

The answers are hard to nail down — with no time to wase in figuring them out.

YouTube? MeTube? How about WeTube.

Are you watching The Times Lakers show on YouTube, our weekly commentary on everything Lakerdom? You should be. You can check it on YouTube here and be sure to like, subscribe and comment.

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Song of the week

“Same Song” — Digital Underground

It’s been the same song when the Lakers have played the last four weeks. This one sounds better.

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