Dear LeBron, … ask me.
Dear AD, …follow him.
This is my Christmas wish for a Lakers franchise that lost town to the Dodgers, lost the season due to a bad roster, and just lost by 41 points to Pat Riley.
After a quarter of the season, the Lakers are no better than the bottom seed in the Western Conference, which is certainly on its way to a third consecutive appearance in the play-in tournament, seemingly destined for a second consecutive knockout in the first round.
It’s over. Al. There is no hope. Again. With no first-round selection and suffocating salaries, they may not be better next year. Real.
In the midst of a 3-7 skid that was only briefly tempered by a 107-98 win over a terrible Portland Trail Blazers team on Sunday, there is fear and despair among the Lakers crowd, which has led to two legitimate questions that someone in the organization should state .
Read more: Playing without LeBron James, the Lakers have several heroes in the win over Portland
Does LeBron James really want to end his career mired in mediocrity? Does Anthony Davis really want to spend the rest of his life in the shadows of irrelevance?
With the Lakers reaching a milestone on Dec. 15 — that’s the date when teams can for the first time trade players like 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 voluntarily leave it.
If James gives in to his no-trade clause, the Lakers could send him to a contender for one last hurray.
If Davis gives his endorsement — the Lakers don’t need it and could trade him today since he signed his contract in 2023, but they would want to because that’s how they treat superstars — the Lakers could send him somewhere where he could have a chance can get at another ring before his body breaks down for the last time.
In either case, the Lakers could receive enough funds to begin a rebuilding project that their weary fans would surely support.
Everything is better than this.
They have a smart new head coach who has performed better than this critic predicted, but JJ Redick’s 24-game record is one game worse than Darvin Ham’s first 24 games last season.
They may have the best player in the history of the sport, but the 39-year-old James is finally showing his age with a spotty offense and no defense and the 485th-ranked plus minus rating – minus-129 – in a league of 499 ranked players.
They may have 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 only comes every other night show up.
They have some good young players 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.
Read more: Lakers buried in barrage of 24 Miami threes during blowout: ‘We’re all ashamed’
They have a bench that was outscored by 48 points in Atlanta, a defense that refused to protect anyone on the 134-point scoring Miami Heat, and an experienced core that was nevertheless in foul trouble during the usual collapse against Denver.
They played so poorly against Miami last week that Spectrum Sportsnet analyst Robert Horry — one of the most influential players in NBA history — delivered a memorable rant saying the Lakers played like a team trying to fire its coach.
He even repeated the phrase “1-2-3 Cancun,” mimicking Nick 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 as he hit his game-winning three — that the disarmingly honest Redick openly struggled to describe it afterward.
“Leave it open, then,” he said of that final shot.
They’re just as frustrating as last season, with a chance to improve only marginally.
Sure, they could give away D’Angelo Russell, but for what? Yes, they can trade Reaves and Knecht, and that might get them a decent two-way player, but that won’t get them significantly closer to a championship.
The heat is certainly on basketball boss Rob Pelinka – they fired three coaches under his watch, who’s to blame? – so if he wants to fight back, this is how he can do it.
Don’t stand still. Do not attempt to seal leaks. Heed James’ recent warning.
“We just shouldn’t drown,” he told reporters.
Read more: Lakers lose to Minnesota in the lowest scoring game of the LeBron era in LA
Yet a team burdened by the contracts of James and Davis is already underwater. The trick for Pelinka is to convince the two stars that there is a way for them to emerge.
James needs to realize that he has done everything he wanted to do here. He won a championship. He broke the scoring record. He appeared in a game with his son. He has no choice here but to spend his final days entertaining fans who will still never consider him a true Laker.
Can you imagine the drama of James joining an experienced team as the missing piece and chasing another championship? By leaving Hollywood, he would create his own Hollywood.
Davis, on the other hand, still has a lot to accomplish, but he needs to realize that won’t happen 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 rest of his career here as an underachiever who couldn’t stay healthy, or he could go somewhere else and be a savior born again.
As entertaining as they’ve been here, the prospects of seeing the Lakers evolve without James and Davis are bright. It would be cool to see how young, malleable players could connect with Redick, a rookie with no head coaching experience whose hiring here was initially torn.
So far he’s solid. He seems to be putting this team in a position to win – lots of teamwork, lots of speed – but they just don’t have the width or depth to make it happen. He also gets high marks for early responsibility, as evidenced by his postgame presser after the Miami horror.
“I will take over all the property in the world,” he said. “This is my team and I lead it and I’m ashamed.”
The problem with that statement is that this isn’t his team yet.
It’s the team of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and it’s time for them to give up.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
