Of all the damage to words publicly spilled on Lakers Media Day on Monday, only one really matured.
When LeBron James The host Chris McGi asked: “In addition to the fact that on the media day next year next year on the sports network next year in the sports network?”
James's laughter answer set the template for the season.
“May be.”
Thus, Lakers should relate to the next eight months, devastating their assets and abandon their future and play with the desperation of a team trying to earn one last jewelry for perhaps the greatest player in history?
May be.
So should fans here and around the league appear in crowds and line up in a quarter for their last living gaze at a living legend?
May be.
Or, if everything goes wrong, and everything becomes ugly, should Lakers and James be eager to part through the ransom in the middle of the season?
May be.
Regardless of what is happening, the fact that James did not reveal his intentions in his first public performance since last spring means that this season Loker has a chance to become dark, maybe a mess.
Everyone knows where Lakers stand, how Rob Pelinka He said last week. He wants James to finish his career here.
“We would like Lebron’s story to be resigned from a leaker,” Pelinka said. “It would be a positive story.”
But no one still knows where James stands, and this is not obvious, because, although he is 40 years old and enters into his 23rd season of the NBA record, he looks young and acts energetically, and on Monday he was in his charming better object.
“It’s just excited by travel, and everything that has prepared this year for me,” he said.
He probably does not speak, because he really does not know. The next spring throughout life. He does not know how he will feel. He does not know what his future in basketball might look.
But since he does not say, this season, it would seem, could go in one of three ways.
It can go Kershaw the pathThe James field could again become one of the best players in the league, but he was tired of the load on his body, and in the last weeks of season he could call this dismissal. The crowd Crypto.com receives a chance to say goodbye, and his Lakers teammates can use his pension as an inspiration for a deep run after the season.
Or it can go Kobe PathThe field in the middle of the season James could decide that he had enough, and go on a farewell tour along the entire league, which once led the hard Cobi of Brian to tears.
Or, given the recent fragmentary history of the organization, it is quite possible that it can follow the typical path of Lakers.
LeBron James jokes with reporters when he arrives at the Lakers Media Day on Monday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los -Angeles Times)
James could spend a year, forcing the “Lakers to hang” on this “possibly”, subtly struggling with the loss of the leadership of his team Luke DonchichPassively aggressively looking like a pelinka to improve the list during the extreme period of trade, even sometimes threatening to go into place.
Since it is too difficult to exchange it, and Lakers do not want to spend money to redeem it, they spend the rest of the season, evading its carols, and then just let the contract with James expire and watch how he runs to the Cleveland’s house for his song of the swans.
Three scenarios, but only two happy endings, and in order to make the matter even more complex, largely depends not on James, but on the list around him.
Will Lakers be good? Are you ready for this?
May be.
Lakers played only 23 games with James and a recently acquired donchik last season, and they were 15-8 and grabbed the third seed and acted as the best team in the NBA at some point before they broke up against the Minnesota in the playoffs.
They added Deandre Ayton for length, Jake Laraviya to protect, Marcus Smart for endurance and a new body for Donchich, a previously chubby and lifeless child who recognized his very adult transformation.
“I am probably in the best place,” he said on Monday.
Is it good enough to bring the team to the best place in the competitive West? Who knows?
Will James be convinced to ask for a new contract and stay for another year? This is unlikely, but again, the oldest living baller currently exists unlikely.
The only confidence is that James is going to make this decision at one time with his own voice through his own podcast or social networks or, damn, perhaps, another 30-minute television specialty called “Last Solution?”
Be that as it may, he does not say anything now, which was obvious when he answered the first question at his press conference “Media Day” with cunning statements.
“I mean, I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I am excited today, I am excited about the opportunity to play the game that I love during another season. And regardless of the trip, but the trip this year comes, I am simply super invested because … I don’t know when the end, but I know that this is much earlier than later. ”
He gave his most indicative hint that he was leaning for retirement when he talked about evaluating his last tours in the league.
“Knowing that the end is soon, it is not accepted for granted, you know, on Tuesday evening in the city, which, perhaps, I do not want to be that night … Let's block because you do not know how many times you get the opportunity to play the game or be able to compete,” he said. “So there are times when you wake up, and you just feel that you simply do not have it. So these will be the days when I know that I can lock myself very quickly, for example, good, you will not have many days, so let's block and enjoy the moment, enjoy the rest of the trip. ”
Bronni and Lebron James pose for photos in the Lakers of the media, as Rui Khachimur makes a selfie in front of them.
(Robert Gauthier / Los -Angeles Times)
He was asked if he would now that he was playing with the son of Bronnie, he will stop to play with his son from Arizona-Fashman Bryce? His answer was LeBron in his father's best.
“No, I'm not waiting for Bryce,” he said. – No. I do not know what its time scale is. Now he is his own young man, as if he were in tuson. Let's see what will happen this year, next year, you know, but he has his own schedule. I got my temporary scale, and I don’t know if they coincide. ”
He was asked if his decision would influence the chance to play with the Donchik. His response was LeBron in his best jabbing.
“Ah, nah. How much do I go in my career? No. Zero, ”he said. “Motivation to be able to play with him every night, it is very motivated. This is what I am going to train my body for. Every night I go there and try to be the best player for him, and we are going to bounce off each other. But, as far as I weigh him and some other teammates from how far I go in my career, nah. ”
It can be the team of Luke Donchich, but this is still the world of Lebron James, and he is going to control his narrative to the last syllables of the last sentences of his last farewell.
And this does not mean, maybe.
