The Story of Lebron's 4th Ring: You Thought He Was Finished (Cases For The Greatest of All Time P.5)

he could end up with a championship and a Finals MVP on three different teams. This historic 2020 NBA championship belongs to the laker nation of the los angeles lakers. I want his respect and I want my damn respect too now that it happened quickly or at least that's what it feels like to join. A franchise without any other star players who had been underwater for the past five seasons to successfully win a championship with three different franchises, this happens to be the most historic in NBA hi

story

. Look, the thing is and always has been the case with Lebron in favor.

Goat isn't like the other guys, he's obviously still playing for one, but he's also adding something else in year 17 of his career, when most other players would be hurting their

cases

at that

time

if they'd made it this far now. The job is to analyze exactly what he added and how he added it since we left off more than two years ago in a

story

that is miraculously still being written. Also, the goal is to specifically highlight the process of how we got here because it's easy to forget. Now that none of this seemed likely when he took on this challenge in the summer of 2018 and revisiting the series of events that led to his fourth title is almost as important to his legacy as winning it two years ago, LeBron's case for the goat seemed about full and just a little more packaging was needed to convince the skeptics, what is now easy to forget is that there was no guarantee that the empty space would ever be filled.

He was fresh off his sixth NBA Finals loss and his second straight loss. giant warriors who seemed to have practically abolished parody in the league, that didn't matter to some people as it was quite popular to overlook the daunting task of even beating that team once and instead focus on the fact that that Lebron had now lost the same number of Finals that Jordan won while undefeated was not only that Golden State brandished the most talented roster ever written, but Lebron's roster was literally the exact opposite and no one had any real idea how long. The ages of the Warriors' core players could, in theory, have competed for the next five titles if they wanted to, and if their health allowed, meanwhile, Lebron was facing another free agency decision. and the question had become less about whether he would actually do it. getting rid of Cleveland for the second

time

and even more so as to where he could go, that would even give him a chance to compete in this climate, the Cavs had completely fallen apart at the worst possible time, losing Kyrie and undergoing a massive trade roster at the exact moment Lebron had been planning the rest of his career for Cleveland, that was akin to having the coronavirus in the wild while trying to get re-elected with the front office once again showing signs of incompetence.

Lebron knew he shouldn't give up on the final years of his career. his career at his mercy, so if he was really chasing Jordan and realized he couldn't do it by losing every year, something like these Sixers seemed to make sense, a young core with Ben Simmons and Embiid, or maybe there was some way Houston could make it work by playing. alongside one of his best friends and smartest NBA players, Chris Paul, while flanked by the most dangerous offensive player, James Harden, Houston had been just one win away and possibly just one injury away from defeating the Warriors, since He stood up, how could anyone deal with Lebron having weapons like that?

Well, no one would ever know because of the entire option package he had that summer, he chose the Los Angeles Lakers now, even though they had failed to attract big names of late and were stumbling. their path through a rebuild was still the and being able to sell Lebron James, on top of that, would make landing a second star relatively simple in theory, on the other hand, the biggest name they were possibly going to pair up with with him that summer was Paul George. and given the existence of warriors, that duo wasn't going to make much noise in the grand scheme of things.

Pg ended up not even going there anyway, so now

lebron

was stuck with what honestly seemed like the knights of the west were just a few half-decent supporting pieces that he'd be lucky to carry to a spot four given the conference competition, There was a pretty logical question surrounding all of this, why at 34 years old, with the Warriors holding the league hostage and Father Time ready to strike. At any given time, what was the purpose of joining a rebuilding project and a rebuilding project in the same conference as Golden State? At the time, the obvious answer was the Lakers' master plan to target this Pelican star, Anthony Davis, who was approaching the final year of his contract and gain more influence over his future with each passing day, but even then, depleting this Lakers roster via midseason trade just to have Lebron and ad play with G League players would barely scratch Golden State even if they could. to reshuffle him du

ring

the 2019 offseason, he still had relatively little chance against the juggernaut, but that was the quickest way to make the duo happen and the alternative, should the initial trade fall through for some reason, was wait until New Orleans was forced to change it.

At the end of the 2020 season, of course, there would be plenty of competitors for his services or he would wait until the 2023 agency. Either way, there were no guarantees and from the perspective of 2019, this still didn't seem like a big deal for Lebron's career. , it was basically a waiting game for an announcement or a second star while growing up not even knowing what would become of the Warriors or how much time he had left at a high level and so, with those crucial questions in play, the 2019 season began and LeBron kicked . He began the next and presumably final chapter of his career with no real assurance that this move would ever add to his legacy, convincing many that this move had been motivated primarily by business in reality, even though his case was already so strong. before the move that was also clearly a low-risk, high-reward option, going to Los Angeles and never b

ring

ing them a title, really hurt his legacy given the state of the league at the time, as long as he kept up his game and led to the Laker to somewhere decent, he really wouldn't stay.

On the other hand, if things ever worked out, he'd have one with three different franchises, elevating himself to the lake pantheon of greats, while doing the one thing critics always said he couldn't do: dominate the Western Conference with the career of LeBron being the movie he so often seemed to be, his inaugural Laker points looked eerily similar to how he began his career, although this magical start would unfortunately not set the tone for the season or even the game to begin with. It was more fun than anything to watch the best player in the league and a goat candidate migrate to this storied franchise playing in front of a host of celebrities and in that iconic low lighting of the staples most nights, it was simply fascinating to watch in exciting games. and analyze how Lebron would dominate without being flanked by as many elite shots as he had so often been quiet as many suspected before the season, this seemed to mean exactly nothing with the angels losing their first three games of the season and key players being suspended since the beginning as a result of the famous fight with houston, as had always happened in the west, each game was crucial since a loss could be the difference between a fifth place or not making the playoffs, but miraculously

lebron

still led to this Lakers team to a 19-14 record in their Christmas Day meeting with the Warriors, who were only four wins ahead of them in this standings.

Even more surprising was that the Lakers practically controlled the entire game, which obviously meant very little in the way of a potential playoff matchup, but it was still something to behold given the difference in rosters, it was also another time that Lebron He kept things competitive with Golden State despite having an inferior team, however, things seemed to be going too well under the circumstances and maybe James lost, he gets it back. kuzma for a three-discipline defense and james holding his left leg and obviously also his groin area and shaken by that play about four minutes into the third quarter, lebron would make a slip that didn't seem too serious until the display of pain obviously he shot him down.

On his face, this was tormenting a guy we'd never seen suffer anything close to dangerous in terms of injuries, so if he really felt like he needed to limp away from the game without being able to come back, it was probably something serious and Seriously, was right in the middle of what was becoming another signature season for LeBron, this time in the Western Conference, without any other superstars by his side. He would miss a career-high 17 consecutive games with a groin strain, likely only returning when he did because his team desperately needed him during these 17 games he missed during that one-month span, the Lakers had lost 11 of them and with the calendar turning to February, they were now fighting an uphill battle to get west.

The difficult playoff group La was also fighting against the clock to acquire Anthony Davis, among other things, Magic Johnson had pitched Lebron upon joining La Chief, among them had to have been the assurance that he would not play the last few years of his career in a reconstruction. project because how would that have made sense? In fact, Lebron on a team full of 20-year-olds with no realistic path to the Finals for the next two or three seasons — honestly, it didn't make sense for either party — stunted Los Angeles' rebuilding process. and james wouldn't be any closer to adding to his legacy, this is part of why for the first time in his career there started to be rumors that it might have been the best move to trade for lebron james, it could be a trade with, ya you know floyd and anthony davis or i think they need to explore the lebron trade to get everything they can what are you seriously doing?

No seriously, what are you doing? no you gotta be on the right schedule if i could i'm going to say if i could trade for the scissors in the booth space that would give me a better chance of getting durant or kawhi leonard. Wouldn't you do that now that we've been able to witness how things turn out? It seems like it's nothing more than a troll take that this was once an argument, however, things had gotten really bad for the Lakers in a short period of time. The Pelicans had decided not to negotiate in good faith with the Lakers regarding the advertising exchange.

The Lakers' brass had offered everything but their souls to do that. The deal was made and yet the Pelicans would also ask for exactly that, so at that moment the message was clear: Anthony Davis was not going to be a Laker any time soon, at least if New Orleans was not going to accept everything he really had to offer. in february because they were going to do it 4 or 5 months later and with that lebron and the lakers were stranded he had infamously declared playoff mode upon returning from his injury but it hadn't been difficult to see that in reality he had just returned with the injury, he was still fine, but clearly a slower pace and for the first time human between the mileage of eight consecutive finals and this new injury, the worst of his career, it seemed that time was finally passing and, if that was true, the warriors were still together and the lakers weren't getting anthony davis so what purpose was lebron there? the situation had the potential to become similar to when the lakers obviously needed to rebuild but were accommodating a much lesser version of kobe for the last three years in the french hope that some star like carmelo anthony would come play with him there was no doubt that That had been one of the reasons the Lakers had been so bad throughout the decade and these seeds of repeating that fate were being planted here, perhaps it was this potential massive failure that helped Magic Johnson abruptly resign. as president of the lakers in early april and it was definitely one of the most shocking events of that season: the man who was sold lebron about the future in the city of angels walked away from it all without even telling him, although Magic cited many personal reasons for the decision, it was difficult not to see the correlation between this failed experiment and his premature departure.

The 2019 season would quietly fizzle out for the Lakers as they would essentially shut down LeBron in hopes of keeping him healthy and resting. a disappointing finish of 37 and 45, just two victories above what they hadachieved just one season earlier, this would also be considered the first time Lebron missed the playoffs since 2005 and made him a pretty easy target for smear regarding the fact that it was his first year in the West and his case really seemed closed . What was there and still was incredible, but there was no clear path to adding more and after applying recency bias, a flame like the one apparently approaching was extinguished.

It could have even ended up hurting him there, however, there was a glimmer of hope on April 17, the Pelicans would name David Griffin their vice president of basketball operations. Griffin also happened to have been the Cavaliers' general manager during LeBron's time there the next year. Almost two months after the firing of GM Dale Dimps who had played a prank on the Lakers instead of trying to move Anthony Davis, talking about A.D to finish the Pelican season, he was playing sparingly or not at all as had been done. It was clear that there was no path forward with him in New Orleans, so it could only hurt the Pelicans if something happened to him taking his trade value and if there was any confusion about where he stood in the future.

Davis was wearing a "That's It" t-shirt. Until his last game with the Pelicans, which had to be one of the most striking declarations of independence between a star and the host team, still, no one could be 100% sure where Davis would end up, apparently the Celtics had managed to make the Pelicans wait until the offseason to negotiate, however, Aed's father had made it quite clear that if he had ended up there, he would be nothing more than a rental already taking care of a practical rental and Kyrie Irving's talks there rarely seemed serious. with griffin leading the way in new orleans, his negotiating position with the lakers seemed to soften a bit and then the final domino, the fourth pick in the 2019 nba draft goes to the los angeles lakers, he would be very lucky to come out of the lottery with the fourth overall pick in a relatively exciting draft and just like that, the future of Anthony Davis and the Lakers have never looked clearer between leadership changes in New Orleans and another negotiating ship for the Angels, they could have basically started to print anthony davis.

At that very moment, neither La nor Lebron really hid their intentions and as if these stars had a line, the giant disappeared. Ivanka trying to stay with Durant hits him and Duran slips. Durant falls holding his leg and Durant grabbing that right leg. thompson running down the court and a foul and thompson clutching his left knee now writhing in pain one after one the chips simply fell into place to create a path for lebron to add more to his case not only had they directly had the unfortunate events of The 2019 season led to a much-needed break, the Warriors were now toast for at least a season with an Achilles injury to Kevin Durant in his contract year and acl to Clay Thompson in the Warriors' last game already There was going to be a parody for the 2020 season regardless.

Whether and if they retained that core, which no longer seemed likely after multiple strenuous events in player relationships, who knew if they would ever be the same again, the Warriors' death grip on the league would no longer be the same. existed, they were no longer reigning champions and the throne was once again up for grabs Adrian Rojanowski reporting that Kevin Durant is indeed headed to Brooklyn to join Kyrie Irving and Deandre Jordan Rocket Blast OKC sending point guard Westbrook to Houston is teaming up with james harding once again breaking news at the sports center kawhi leonard has informed teams that he would be signing with the los angeles clippers.

I don't think Kawhi Leonard was going to go to the Clippers without a second start. Sit back for Paul George going to the Clippers to join Kawhi. Suddenly, the league was packed with competition again. and the lakers were dangerously close to the top when the dust settled after acquiring a.d. There were even some days when it seemed very possible that they would get Kawhi Leonard even though he had just won the title, but in relation to the Lebron case it is a good What they didn't do, a big trio with three players among the five and top seven wouldn't have been much more respected than the Warriors.

However, it's hard not to imagine that some fans would have enjoyed his revenge, but in reality revenge for LeBron would have. take place on an even playing field where the Lakers were not the clear favorites. Lebron with another top five player, arguably the best teammate of his career, was being somewhat painted as the underdog in his own city. The Clippers of all teams had emerged as the team captivated the imagination and not without reason had the current Finals MVP, Kawhi Leonard, who had just ended one of the best playoff runs we had ever seen on the perimeter with another star locked in poet george and had come out with a season where people briefly campaigned for him to be MVP of each other, they were the best teammates they had ever had while being the star of a team and if that wasn't Enough, this Clippers team had surprised quite a few people in the playoffs and in the regular season in general, so this defensive-minded duo combined with their supporting pieces were being presented as LeBron's next test in his goat case. and the story was really writing itself, kawhi and pg, two superstars with past stories of their own involving lebron while sharing the same building as him, rumors that kawhi is the best player in the league, a team trying to become the winningest franchise in league history and that perfectly juxtaposes them being the joke of the town for decades and probably the league for Lebron to get this next title, it was

thought

that there was no way to avoid that confrontation and lose it and Consequently, losing the opportunity to become the king of the Western Conference with another MVP player at his side would undoubtedly be detrimental in the eyes of many like him.

I once promised during his agitated moment that he would be ready for you.