I’m old enough to remember when Johnny Gill joined legendary R&B group New Edition, replacing Bobby Brown.
Some couldn’t get over Gill not being Brown and thought he would never be a “real” member of the group because he wasn’t part of the original quintet.
But imagine “N.E. Heartbreak” without Gill – he was necessary to make that album special. Eventually, fans (at least those with sense) accepted Gill and all six members have toured together.
LeBron James is like Gill to the most extreme of Lakers fans. He wasn’t a Laker for life like Magic Johnson or Kobe Bryant. His tenure couldn’t top Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s stint (though he did top a certain “unbreakable” record) or bring the same success of prime Shaquille O’Neal.
But this talk of James not being a “real” Laker, that it’s good riddance to him and all the LeBron Stans now that James has decided to play elsewhere next season, is wild. You can debate where James ranks among great Lakers, but he is definitely a great Laker.
James’ No. 23 will join the likes of Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar, O’Neal, West and Bryant in the rafters of Crypto.com Arena when he retires from the NBA.
James deserves a statue alongside the likes of Elgin Baylor, Oscar De La Hoya, Chick Hearn and Wayne Gretzky outside the arena.
It’s impossible for James’ Lakers legacy to match that of Bryant and other greats. Bryant and Johnson arrived as teenagers and retired as all-time greats. Abdul-Jabbar and O’Neal won multiple titles.
The Lakers were the best team in the NBA before the COVID-19 pandemic ended the season and James followed through in the bubble, delivering the 2020 NBA championship. Cynics dismiss it because it was during the pandemic, in an enclosed environment players grew tired of, but the Lakers were on a title trajectory before the NBA shut down.
To appreciate why James is forever a Laker, it’s not about that championship. It’s about where the Lakers were before James.
The Lakers hadn’t just fallen on hard times. They were way behind the LA Clippers in the standings, a laughable idea for most Angelenos. The Golden State Warriors had become champions three times since the Lakers had won a title.
The Lakers had more in common with the struggling Sacramento Kings than they did with any other team in California.
The Lakers traded many of their young players to land Anthony Davis after James arrived. (Harry How / Getty Images)
Bryant retired in 2016. The Lakers went 17-65 that season. The next couple of seasons were spent hoping the Lakers’ young core would carry the team into a new era of winning. The Lakers were 35-47 and missed the playoffs before James arrived.
James’ arrival meant the Lakers mattered again. Sure, the young core of Brandon Ingram, Julius Randle, D’Angelo Russell, Lonzo Ball, Larry Nance Jr., Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart was promising, but the Lakers are about superstars.
James brought the Lakers star power and relevance they hadn’t had since Bryant was cooking. Sure, the Lakers name still mattered before James, but the Lakers didn’t matter in the postseason. James had the ability to change that.
The Lakers were 20-14 when bad luck hit, and James injured his groin on Christmas 2018 at Golden State. The Lakers stumbled without James for 17 games and missed the playoffs again.
After trading many of their young players to land Anthony Davis, the 2019-20 Lakers would break through during the pandemic for the franchise’s 17th championship and helped a city and fanbase cope after Bryant’s tragic death in January 2020.
That is when James solidified his Lakers legacy.
Bad luck and bad decisions derailed what would have been a bigger impact.
James was having an MVP-caliber season, and the Lakers were contenders to repeat as champions when Solomon Hill dove for a loose ball on March 21, 2021, and rolled into James, causing a high ankle sprain that would send the Lakers down the standings. Davis’ injury in the first round of the playoffs helped doom the Lakers against Phoenix after they took a 2-1 lead over the Suns.
There was only one conference finals after that (2023) and multiple questionable roster decisions (not keeping Alex Caruso, the Russell Westbrook trade) and injuries that kept James’ eight seasons from being better.
But James’ time as a Laker matters. It’s significant. He stepped in where most stars would have run in the opposite direction as the first star after the Kobe era. He’s passing the title of face of the franchise to Luka Dončić.
And the Lakers are in a better place for Dončić, not in the upper echelon of the Western Conference yet, but certainly not the basement of the post-Kobe/pre-LeBron era. This new edition of the Lakers needs some retooling, but they should be a playoff-caliber squad.
Dončić can thank James for that. And that’s why James is a “real” Laker.
