Just before the Lakers faced the Rockets in their first game after the All-Star break, LeBron James announced to all and sundry that he would be on afterburners for the remainder of the season. “It’s been activated,” he said, turning to a word he had hitherto used in reference to how his intensity level seemed to ramp up in the playoffs. The difference, of course, was that he wasn’t anywhere near the postseason yet. In fact, he was in danger of missing it altogether for the first time since 2005, what with the purple and gold at 28-29 and presumably requiring him to put his nose to the proverbial grindstone in order to avert the possibility.
As things turned out, the Lakers did forge victory against the Rockets, and in dramatic fashion to boot. They had to overcome a 19-point deficit en route to protecting home court against last year’s conference finalists, in the process wiping the stigma off their immediate past defeat against the lowly Hawks. Unfortunately, any confidence they may have picked up from the outcome have proven short-lived; since then, they’ve prevailed only twice in 12 outings, putting them closer to the bottom of the West than to a playoff berth.
Considering how the Lakers have fared, James’ “activated” pronouncement has rightly been viewed with skepticism. Critics have been all over him, wondering why there is a dichotomy in the first place. Shouldn’t the switch always be on? And granting that it isn’t, what does that make of his vaunted LeBron 2.0 Mode given the swoon that followed, anyway? To be sure, it would be unfair to pin the blame wholly on him when they were on track to begin the first round of the playoffs at Staples Center before his freak Christmas Day injury derailed their seemingly steady climb.
Nonetheless, James is James, and in the manner that he garnered accolades with his previous exploits carrying overmatched teams to remarkable runs, he deserves blame for failing to do the same with the Lakers. And, certainly, the optics generated by new lows don’t help. Yesterday, for instance, he snatched defeat from the throes of triumph in coming up with his worst fourth-quarter showing of all time. It wasn’t simply that he went four of 15 from the field in the payoff period against the Knicks, holders of the league’s worst record off the league’s worst defense; he canned zero of six to close the match, and his potential game winner was blocked by a journeyman scrub with tons of experience riding the pine.
James was frustrated in the aftermath, and with reason. Including yesterday’s stinker, the Lakers are embarrassed owners of a 31-39 slate, the exact same one they had this time last year. It’s as if his presence hasn’t mattered — not quite the narrative he’s looking for to bolster his greatest-of-all-time cause. For all his current failures, though, he still has something to turn to: opportunity. He can close the season strong, and then go through the next with purpose from the get-go. Nope, he doesn’t need to get anything “activated.” He just needs to be himself. And the sooner he realizes it, the faster he can move on.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994.
