Lakers

This trade idea would certainly help the Lakers prepare for the future, but it would be an incredibly bold move on both teams.

But what would motivate the Heat to make that sacrifice? But he is still LeBron James, the guy that led Miami to 4 NBA Finals appearances and back-to-back titles. That often comes with the expense of draft picks and a whole lot of money.

The Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James (6) drives against the Dallas Mavericks' Luka Doncic (77) in the third quarter at crypto.com Arena on March 1, 2022, ...

Metta is the latest athlete to dip into the NFT market, but his comes with a little added benefit.

"We have the NFT with the sneaker that comes with it. In partnership with Blank Soles, Metta will be releasing an NFT. Blank Soles describes the NFT launch that features a Panda on their website. His mental and physical toughness was unparalleled on the court, and that led to plenty of success in Los Angeles.

LeBron James is defiant, but the fans are booing, and the season might be lost.

Last year, the N.B.A. introduced a play-in tournament in which the seventh- through 10th-seeded teams competed for the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference’s playoffs. They have no choice but to make the best of their circumstances. “No,” James said, then each subsequent word sounded a bit more urgent than the last. At 27-34, with the ninth-best record in the Western Conference, they still have a chance to make the playoffs, and they have James, who has led unlikely groups to postseason success before. Westbrook has not played well enough to justify the more than $90 million he is owed over the final two years of his contract. He found the words so repugnant he could not let them go uncontested. This is not what the Lakers envisioned for this season. Instead, Westbrook, whose acquisition James supported, has struggled on a team that cannot constantly feed him the ball. They won that game, but even together they have challenges. Some read his remarks as veiled criticisms of the Lakers’ front office. We’re hoping to get the other one back. They haven’t won since the All-Star break.

The clock is running out this season for LeBron James and Los Angeles, but what about next year? The future looks grim.

The question isn’t whether the Lakers can salvage this season, but the next. L.A. will have the ability to trade two future first-round picks next summer—in 2027 and ’29—but the risk of offloading picks that far into the future is sizable. But even he can’t pull the Lakers out of this, L.A. is sinking, quickly. They could make the playoffs—if the season ended today, L.A. would face New Orleans in the play-in— but the Lakers are going nowhere. The Lakers are a few months from a reckoning. The loss to Dallas dropped the Lakers to 27–34 on the season. Including Westbrook, the Lakers have five players under contract for next season. Westbrook, who is owed $47 million in the final year of his deal, becomes more tradable this summer, but any team acquiring Westbrook will want to offload bad contracts onto the Lakers’ books. Tuesday’s defeat to the Mavericks wasn’t L.A.’s worst loss of the season, but it was a loss, one that pushed the Lakers closer to mid-April exit. The Lakers battled. In the third quarter. The most fight they showed in a 28-point loss to the Pelicans on Sunday was with the home fans.

As bleak as things might seem for the Lakers after their 10th loss in 13 games, LeBron James insisted he won't give up on the season, while sources said he ...

"Obviously, at the end of the day, we got to come in here and win ballgames, and we got to play better. But tomorrow is a new day, and I'm going to be prepared and ready for the Clippers on Thursday. That's just -- that's my mindset. We've beaten the best teams; we've lost to some of the worst teams. "And I don't have the luxury of having rest. "The only way it'll be back to full strength is with rest," he said. So that's my confidence."