MINNEAPOLIS — The day after his team’s fourth straight loss to open the season, LeBron James took to Instagram.
He posted one of the very few highlights worth remembering in their 110-99 defeat against the Denver Nuggets – his own breakaway dunk in the second quarter – with a cryptic caption: “How long will you be taken for granted … Keep going kid”.
It begs the question, of course, who exactly is taking James for granted? But rather than pinpointing exactly who the audience for the post is, the sentiment – along with how James played in the game and what he said after it – is a sure sign that the 37-year-old four-time league MVP is restless early into his fifth season with the Lakers.
For much of his career, as James goes, his team goes. When he’s thriving, the team wins. When he’s playing outside the lines or when he’s hurt, the team sinks with him.
On this year’s squad, the early results have been seemingly beyond even James’ control: The Lakers have shot the lowest 3-point percentage (22.3%) of any team in NBA history over a four-game span with at least 125 attempts. Discourse about Russell Westbrook, James’ struggling teammate, has been turned up to ear-splitting volume. Anthony Davis has started out strong in the paint (averaging 24 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.3 blocked shots per game) but he’s shown strain dealing with lower back soreness, listed as questionable before Friday night’s game in Minnesota.
So where is James’ head at as he faces the second 0-4 start in his 20 NBA seasons? Being more aggressive on offense. He mentioned it at least three times during his postgame interview, despite shooting 8 for 21 overall and going 3 for 10 in the final quarter. Davis, by contrast, took just two shots in the fourth.
James pointed to his eight turnovers as an indication he was being too passive.
“I wasn’t aggressive enough in a lot of my turnovers,” he said. “I was coming off a lot of screens, looking to pass, get guys involved and I wasn’t aggressive enough. Those were careless turnovers on my part.”
But tracking James’ passes – even the unsuccessful ones – brings into question exactly which teammates he was trying to get involved. Six of his nine assists were to Davis, including both of his second-half assists. Of his turnovers, five came on errant passes, and three of those passes were to Davis.
Davis said James acknowledged to him that he was trying to force passes his way, including two that were deflected by Nuggets center Nikola Jokic. But their pick-and-roll is a sort of safety blanket for an offense that’s struggling to find its way.
“We’ve been doing that for four years, that two-man game with me and him,” Davis said. “So obviously I know his game more than anybody else on the team.”
James rightly observed that he started the game being passive on offense: His first shot attempt of the night came with just seconds left in the first quarter to try to beat the buzzer. But especially later, after the Lakers were already well on their way to racking up another sub-30% effort from behind the arc, James looked for his own shot and left teammates – Matt Ryan, Pat Beverley, Lonnie Walker IV, Austin Reaves – hanging at the wings. He focused on matchups, attacking Jeff Green and Christian Braun early in shot clocks – even trying to score a quick pull-up against Jokic on one late heave.
It matters that those open shooters haven’t been lighting the world on fire. The top two shooters by percentage are Ryan (4 for 8) and Reaves (4 for 10) on admittedly small sample sizes; no other individual is hitting even 26% from 3-point range. The best of the rest is James himself, although his 9-for-35 mark from deep (25.7%) is hardly striking fear into opposing defenses’ hearts. But the late stages of the loss to Denver intoned that James trusts himself more than he trusts his teammates to finish on his passes.
When asked if the team might be losing trust in one another as their shooting slump continues, James issued a quick denial: “No. Just got to still play the game the right way no matter what.”
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Coach Darvin Ham, however, acknowledged that it might be an issue for the Lakers.
“It’s just human nature,” he said. “No matter what we tell them, how much we encourage them, you’re going to have that little bit of doubt in your mind. But you have to erase that doubt with just faith and aggression.”
The other side of the ball is, as it has been for the past two seasons, an entirely separate issue for James. But especially on offense, he’s the leader – and he can still create a trickle-down. Without mentioning any specific player, Ham said he wanted his team to return to its core principles.
“The more energy we can put on the offensive side of the ball in terms of our running habits, creating separation and running into screens, making sure we execute, making sure when we do have the ball whether we’re iso or playing the pick-and-roll, we’re attacking the paint with purpose and force,” Ham said. “I think that will alleviate a lot of those in-between turnovers.”
James seems to see it differently. After commenting that the Lakers were “bottom everything offensively,” a reporter asked if he’s looking to be more aggressive on offense.
“Yes.”
For himself?
“Yes.”
As the struggles continue, James’ focus appears to be tightening – on himself.
We saw LeBron trying to score in the second half on several possessions with this kind of spacing yesterday in Denver. Attacking matchups like Green and Braun for buckets without really looking to pass. His second-half assists were all to Anthony Davis. pic.twitter.com/h6zZj8ubiT
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) October 27, 2022