McCants Says LeBron, Luka Fit Could Become Lakers’ Playoff Issue
The Los Angeles Lakers are having a solid first-half start to the season, but Rashad McCants believes the team may face some issues entering the playoffs.
Entering Monday’s game against the Sacramento Kings, the Lakers are 23-13. They’re a game behind the Denver Nuggets for third place in the Western Conference and only 2.5 games behind the San Antonio Spurs for the second spot in the West.
Despite a preseason injury to LeBron James that sidelined him for the first month of the season and despite a recent injury that will sideline Austin Reaves for a full month, the Lakers are still keeping up with the Western Conference’s elite.
Perhaps most impressively, prior to Reaves’ injury, James was settling in as a third offensive option for the first time in his career. Both Luka Doncic and Reaves have been lighting it up this season, with Doncic averaging a league-leading 33.7 points per game and Reaves averaging 26.6 points per game.
However, McCants, who currently co-hosts Gil’s Arena with Gilbert Arenas and a number of other former NBA stars, believes that if the trio is still together during the playoffs, it’ll present issues because the 41-year-old James will have difficulty accepting a role as a secondary player for the first time in his career.
“This is a delicate situation,” said McCants in a one-on-one interview with R.org. “You’re dealing with Lebron James. He’s never been one to change his seat up in the car. He always wants to drive regardless of what anyone thinks, and I said today on the show that he’s been playing possum when it comes down to thinking that his numbers are going to be under 15 and the whole scoring 10 for a certain amount of time. LeBron is a guy who can score 30 at night, every night until he’s 50 years old. He’s not a real human being. He’s something different.”
Decisions to Make
James is currently averaging 21.7 points per game, the lowest average he’s posted since his rookie season back in 2003-04 (20.9). The 23-year veteran’s consecutive games streak of at least 10 points scored came to an end recently at 1,297 games.
McCants said James can still score 30 points a night “until he’s 50 years old.” However, the Lakers are going to have to make a decision on what they’re going to do with James and whether or not he’ll remain a Laker moving forward.
James holds a player option for the 2026-27 season and has a no-trade clause.
“LeBron is a guy who can score 30 at night every night until he’s 50 years old,” said McCants.
“He’s not a real human being. He’s something different. He doesn’t have an element where everyone else has been held to when you talk about 40,42, 43 years old, that doesn’t apply to him. His body is different. His IQ of the game is different. The league is different. The league is not a defensive league. So LeBron can score 22 a game, 23 a game at 43 years old, and we wouldn’t even know if he was aging, because of the league is at this particular stage. You have to regulate whether you want Austin Reaves to tap into his greatness as a 27-year-old and have LeBron go somewhere else because his contract is up. If you guys are going to make a run, you’re either going to make a run and keep him, or you’re going to trade him, and he has a little no-trade clause, so it’s going to be sticky.”
LeBron Predicament
McCants said head coach J.J. Redick will likely have an issue on his hands when dealing with the pecking order between Doncic, Reaves, and James come playoff time.
“They’re contending when they have all three guys healthy,” said McCants. “You got Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Dodson, Rui Hachimura, DeAndre Ayton, you got Nick Smith Jr. playing well, Dalton Knecht. You got certain guys that can get you there. But I think that right now, it’s coaching. The coaching is going to be the one variable of how J.J. can be able to harness these egos and place guys in number one, number two, number three, which you should never have to do as a coach. When you have a system, you should just have everybody understand their roles.”
The Lakers have won a championship during the James era back in 2019-20, but it happened during the infamous COVID season when all the playoff games were played in the bubble in Orlando. During the James era, the Lakers have advanced past the first round in just one other season, with all other years ending either in a first-round exit or a non-playoff appearance.
With James obviously winding down his career, McCants stresses the importance of the four-time NBA champion wanting to reach No. 5, and hopefully No. 6 , as he tries to catch Kobe Bryant (five titles) and Michael Jordan (six titles) on the all-time list.
“I think if he could win another championship in another jersey this year, he would force his way out, because that’s better for his legacy,” said McCants of James.
“Think about it. He’s at four right now. Everybody’s having a conversation about him and Jordan. When you got Kobe right there at five championships, six championships (Jordan), four championships (James). So that’s a conversation when you talk about greatness and points and all of these different asterisks.
“If you win five, you’re there with Kobe, where it’s like you can really push Kobe out of the conversation completely with a championship, just to say,” McCants continued. “But if it doesn’t happen and you stay in LA, you’re always going to be in his shadow (Bryant), always.”
McCants brings up a possible scenario of James returning to Cleveland for a third time to help the Cleveland Cavaliers get over the hump in winning another championship. The Cavaliers have been an extremely successful team during the Donovan Mitchell era, clinching the No. 1 seed in the East last season.
However, they lost in the second round of the playoffs and have gotten off to a rough start this year with a 21-18 record, the eighth-best record in the Eastern Conference.
“I think it’s a conceivable thing for every star who’s reconsidering whether their legacy is more important than winning,” said McCants. “So if Los Angeles doesn’t have a chance to win, he has to recalibrate his thinking of putting himself on a team that can. What team out there that if they had LeBron James on it could have a really adamant chance of winning? Cleveland Cavaliers.”