If the Toronto Raptors get swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers again in 2018-19, Nick Nurse and Masai Ujiri are going to have some explaining to do.
After three years living rent-free in the minds of the Raptors and eight years bullying the Eastern Conference as a whole – splintering teams like dry wood, getting coaches fired, disenfranchising fan bases – LeBron James is no longer the Raptors’ problem, or the East’s.
On Sunday evening he announced that he was taking his talents to Hollywood, signing a four-year deal worth $154-million to become the next great Los Angeles Laker.
If it works out, James will get a statue outside Staples Center next to Kareem, Magic, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor (Kobe Bryant’s hasn’t been announced yet). If it doesn’t, James’ transition to off-court mogul will come sooner than later.
Either way, he can’t lose.
Meanwhile, in one fell swoop the Raptors became relevant in the East just weeks after their playoff pratfall made them meme-worthy, all thanks to a certain former Cavalier.
James’ move to the NBA’s power conference should at the very least give the Raptors and their fans something to be energized about between now and October – barring Kawhi Leonard forcing a trade to the Celtics or the 76ers.
Even if the Eastern Conference is now more clearly the NBA’s B division – as it stands now 11 of the 15 all-NBA selections will play in the West next season – you can only play who is on the schedule and if the Raptors somehow make it to the NBA Finals they can worry about how much stronger the West is then.
What to make of LeBron’s decision?
His choice to go to Los Angeles on a four-year deal and to act so quickly in free agency is the only insight we’ll have into his thinking for the moment as he’s decided to put off making any comments until July 30 when he makes his next scheduled public appearance at the opening of his “I Promise” school in Akron, a legacy project that says more about his commitment to his hometown and Northeastern Ohio than leading the Cavaliers to the 2016 NBA title ever did.
One inference that might be made is that James’ determination to match or exceed Michael Jordan’s six NBA titles may be waning or at least shifting: if winning titles now was top of mind, James had better immediate options.
Which is not to say his determination to leave the game as the “GOAT” is any less a priority. It’s just that he might have to take a different path to get there and shape his narrative a different way.
If he can get the Lakers another championship or two – a tall order given that he’s 33 years old and joining a 35-win team that hasn’t won a playoff round in six years – his basketball legacy will be that he built three championship teams from scratch, a challenge Jordan never had to trifle with.
That story combined with a climb to the top of the NBA’s statistical mountain top – if James averages 25 points and eight assists a game over the next four seasons he’ll both smash Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record and jump to third all-time in assists behind John Stockton and Jason Kidd – could be James’ counterargument in GOAT debates going forward.
He’ll never be able to match Jordan’s perfect six wins and six Finals MVPs in six tries, but a couple more titles and his record for franchise-building and his sustained statistical excellence will be hard to dismiss.
But heading to Los Angeles from a basketball perspective is a huge gamble.
After a season in which he dealt with a sad-sack Cavs roster summed up by soup-throwing J.R. Smith forgetting the score in Game 1 of the Finals, James is going to spend his first season in Los Angeles playing with the even more mercurial Lance Stephenson and perma-flake JaVale McGee.
How much tolerance will James have for the antics of LaVar Ball, the attention-seeking father of Lakers second-year point guard Lonzo Ball? The talented but seemingly lethargic Brandon Ingram and the defence-optional Kyle Kuzma?
How tolerant will his early-20-something teammates be of the inevitable scoldings from old-man LeBron? It should all be great theatre, but it’s the drama James has chosen for himself.
Were simply winning as many titles as possible his No. 1 priority, there were clearer paths. It was interesting that in Lee Jenkins’ piece on SInow.com he relates that the only teams James asked his agent Rich Paul to consider were the Lakers, Rockets and 76ers.
Missing from the list were the Celtics. Had James opted in to the final year of his existing contract he could have – in theory – forced a trade to Boston, whose asset base is so rich it could offer a collection of salary-matching players and picks that Cleveland could never have turned down.
James could have gone to work for the league’s best coach and best general manager and stepped into a deep, young, playoff-tested lineup. As a bonus he could have – just for fun – forced Kyrie Irving out of Boston.
But James wanted to head west, was reportedly and understandably enthralled about working with Lakers executive Magic Johnson, and about suiting up for one of the most iconic franchises in all of sport.
That he signed the longest contract possible proves his commitment to the task of revitalizing the Lakers, which in turn should help attract the kind of superstar talent he’ll need around him to get the Lakers back to the mountain top.
In the dowdy old Eastern Conference, teams like the Raptors can celebrate James’ departure. In Los Angeles and across sports, his arrival will make James’ late career story arc as riveting as anything that comes out of Hollywood.
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