The Los Angeles Lakers have won 20 of 24 games and now, after an unequal start of the season, they make NBA fans wonder if the team is a legitimate contender of the championship. We are about to discover its next four road games, starting on Saturday when the team plays the franchise currently in possession of the trophy, the Boston Celtics.
In 2020, LeBron James and Anthony Davis led Purple and Gold to Championship No. 17, moving the franchise to a tie with Boston for most in the history of the League. Last summer, Boston broke that tie. Now, behind James's work and the new Formula Luka Doncic partner, one cannot avoid getting excited about the possibility that these two rivals have been hit once again in June. Maybe if James expires the hated Celtics in the NBA finals, Lakers' fans will have long agreed that he has a statue in Star Plaza.
Maybe.
It is a delicate issue since real estate are usually reserved for players who have spent more years with the franchise that James. Although this is its 22nd season in the NBA, it is only its seventh with the Lakers. Then, although he has scored more points than Kobe Bryant, he planned more assists than Magic Johnson and grabbed more rebounds than Elgin Baylor, he didn't do everything for the Lakers.
The problem is that any other championship that the franchise has won since Minneapolis moved to Los Angeles in 1960, starting with Jerry West and the 1972 team, is represented by a statue in that square outside Crypto.com Arena. It would be strange not to immortalize championship No. 17 in the same way. A high level of cognitive dissonance is needed to be proud of an achievement and not want to recognize who achieved it.
Even if that was resolved in favor of honoring James, there is still the broader question: what are the statues for?
He was in high school when the iconic monument of Joe Louis “The Fist” dedicated himself in the center of Detroit. At that time I only saw the 24 -foot bronze statue through the boxing lens. In high school, I knew that Louis was not born in Motor City, but in Lafayette, Alabama, in 1914. His family moved to Michigan in the 1920s, coinciding with the emergence of the KKK.
That was the first time I began to see the complete reach of the great migration and understand why most families in my neighborhood had roots in the south. When I went to university, “The Fist” reminded me less to boxing and resistance of blacks more.
Just when I rarely think about football when I attend the Arizona cardinal games and passed the Pat Tillman statuewho left the NFL in May 2002 to enlist in the army shortly after the September 11 attacks. He resigned millions to defend this country, and made the last sacrifice. That he registers with me more than his career as a player. I suspect I'm not alone.
Either “The Fist”, the Tillman monument or an Oscar de la Hoya sculpture, the East Mexico American boy who became an international superstar, the story of a statue is always more than the game.
And yes, the precedent of a statue in Star Plaza is one that generally requires more years than James will finally spend on a Lakers uniform. Shaquille O'Neal was with the team for only eight seasons, but half of them ended in the NBA finals. Half James's time in Los Angeles has been losing in the first round or worse. And there are many reasons why the idea of a statue of James next to Showtime's Lakers feels bad.
Unless you think about the broader question: what are the statues for.
James's mother was when he was 16. His father was not in the photo. Growing up in poverty, he experienced housing insecurity and moved up to 10 times in a calendar year before being 9 years old. For his third year at high school, Sports Illustrated appointed him “The Chosen”. Today it has bets in the Liverpool FC, the Boston Red Sox and the Pickleball of the Major Leagues. He is the first NBA player to become a billionaire while playing. And he is the first 40 -year -old player who is still expected to take a team to a championship.
We will see how realistic these expectations are during this next road trip. Three of the four teams they face, Milwaukee, Denver and Boston, have won the title since the Lakers did it in 2020 and combined have won 64% of their games at home. At the end of this section, fans in Los Angeles will be slightly deflated or will think about parade routes. Together with Doncic, who took Dallas to the final last year, James seems to be ready to add even more praise to his basketball curriculum. If the year ends with No. 18, not only will be tied again with Boston for most titles, but also James will become a most of the Lakers folklore.
Perhaps then the staunch fans want to see overwhelmingly to the maximum scorer in the history of the NBA represented in the square.
Although curiously the longer I play, I think about him as a great player. Now it represents one of the most inspiring stories about the achievement of the American dream that the United States has seen.
@Lzgranderson
