Dude...this is a Cleveland Cavaliers board. All of us saw Lebron drag the rotting corpse of last year's Cavaliers team to 50 wins and the NBA Finals. That's close to the same team that is on track to win like 25 games this year. Those of us who are older saw Lebron drag horrible supporting casts to 60+ wins year after year.
It is not "a hell of an accomplishment" to win 50 games with Lebron on your team. In fact, winning 50 games with Lebron is fool's gold and doesn't really tell you shit about the rest of your roster. If you guys end up with 50 wins and don't at least make the Western Conference Finals and win multiple games against the Warriors in the playoffs, that should be a screaming signal that the rest of your team isn't all that good. Lebron is the most impactful player in NBA history. So far the Lakers are looking like a pretty average LBJ squad without all that much talent around him.
And to be quite honest with you, from my perspective, it seems as though some of the responses I’ve gotten here have been fairly inconsistent. On one hand, you have people saying that the Lakers young core are at best average, so he’s lugging around a bunch of half scrubs (btw, he’s playing right now with second unit guys as starters as Rondo, Ingram, and McGee are all out. All starters).
On the other, you’re telling me that he’s got all this talent around him and 52 wins in the parity driven, grueling Western Conference isn’t an accomplishment.
Is that right?
Damn right he’s impactful, he’s averaging 27/7/7 in 34 minutes.....
......
Who argued that he WASN’T impactful?
Back to the point at hand. The Lakers are 2.5 games out of first place in the West. Denver, the first seed, is 20-9, and the defending champ Warriors are 21-10. The team that took GS to 7 and the brink last season are 15-14. Golden State without Curry for a few games is supposed to be a far more talented team then the Lakers. Yet, they didn’t do to well without their pride and joy. LeBron has been dealing with a team that has seen three of its starters out at various times, along with no backup center until we got Chandler.
Tell me again how the Lakers look “pretty average” by those standards?
Also, it’s one thing to win 52-57 games in the East, it’s another to do in the West. The fact that he was able to come here and put the team in this position is absolutely an accomplishment.
Finally, the Lakers have managed to win 57+ games a multitude of times in the last 18 years. I am not some ignoramus who isn’t knowledgeable about the game. I’ve loved this game since I was 3 years old.