LeBron Is Currently In A Fight For His Life Against Father Time

Listen, it was bound to happen eventually. At some point, every single professional athlete has to come to grips with the fact that they cannot beat Father Time. If there was one guy who seemed to be the best equipped to win that battle, it was LeBron. Hell, he'd already been pretty successful at delaying the inevitable, certainly longer than most expected. Year after year everyone predicted THAT was the season we'd finally see the dropoff, but instead, it was your standard LeBron 27/7/7 on 50% shooting. Hate the guy all you want, but this type of production is legitimately insane.

And yet finally, after all these years, we may have our first sign that it might be Father Time's turn to get his shots in

Outside of the worst shooting stretch of his career, LeBron also has 52 turnovers in his last 10 games. As a result (and in addition to AD sneaky disappearing as well), the Lakers are in a bit of a free fall at the moment. Just 5-5 over their last 10 and by far the worst point differential of any top 12 seed in the West (-2.6). The early returns on their defense have not been great (24th), and as awesome of a basketball mind as JJ Redick may have when it comes to offense, over this 10 game stretch the Lakers offense ranks 24th in the league. At some point, your talent is your talent.

As you can imagine, now that LeBron is finally showing signs of being human, the vultures are circling like you knew they would be. 

I mean, you had to expect this given everyone has been waiting for over 2 decades for this moment. Even as a purebred Lakers hater myself, it does feel a little silly to dip into the well and do a whole LeBron vs MJ legacy debate based on how LeBron is playing as a 40 year old. I mean, no shit a guy that old is going to show signs of his age. I will say you know it has to eat Skip Bayless up inside that after multiple decades of LeBron hate, now that he has a chance to get his shots in he doesn't have a TV show to do it. I would bet my life that even though he's playing like shit, that brings LeBron some joy.

Because he's LeBron, I'd say there's a pretty good chance he manages to fight back against Father Time this season. Right now he's in the middle of a brutal rut that he'll eventually play out of because again, he's LeBron. 

But my question is more about the Lakers future. In the NBA, you have to be early and not late when it comes to this stuff. If an asset is cooked and could potentially leave you for nothing, you're sort of pigeonholed into flipping that asset early if you want to remain competitive moving forward. As a reminder, LeBron has a player option at $52M for next season before he can hit free agency in 2026-27 should he still be playing

I bring this up because look at that little bit of copy at the bottom of this graphic. In about two weeks, LeBron will officially be allowed to be traded. Should the Lakers free fall continue through the trade deadline in February and LeBron's play never really recovers, what do they do?

There's a case to be made that the "smart" basketball move would be to try and turn LeBron into assets you can use for the next stage of your rebuild. At the same time, trading LeBron midseason sounds rather insane on the surface. Do you just eat the lost season, hope he picks up his player option, and maybe signs another 1+1? If they somehow know he's going to retire after this season, do you take 60 cents on the dollar to perhaps get ahead of things? I find it unlikely they trade LeBron in the same season they brought in his son, but at what point do the Lakers shift gears and start to think about their future in a post-LeBron world? Especially if his caliber of play might be doing more harm than good?

The whole thing fascinates me because really, LeBron has this entire franchise by the balls. You lived with that reality these last few years because the on-the-court production made it worth it. But if you remove that part of the equation, what then?