LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers had an unsuccessful 2018-19 NBA season together.
After the Lakers got off to a great start, a Christmas Day injury to James derailed the rest of the season to the point where they failed to make the playoffs for a sixth straight season.
This led the front office to make serious changes. They parted ways with head coach Luke Walton, president of basketball operations Magic Johnson resigned, and general manager Rob Pelinka proceeded to redo the entire roster, starting with the Anthony Davis Davis. All of this led to the incredible start to the 2019-20 season as through 13 games, the Lakers are 11-2 and look dominant doing so, with a top-10 offense and the league’s best defense.
James spoke about what last season meant to him and how he’s using it as motivation this season.
“It’s motivating, it’s motivating. Obviously that December 25th game set our season in the wrong and a lot of things happened from that moment. For me, having an injury like that… never happened to me before so it kind of just set me back and gave me an opportunity to just kind of reset,” James shared.
“The whole offseason, I’m just hearing the noise and hearing everything that went with it, I was able just to go back and start from scratch. I broke down my game. I broke down a lot of everything that I went through… my body and everything and just said that when the fall comes, I’m going to put myself in the best possible shape… into tip-top shape both mentally, physically, spiritually to get this season going the right way no matter who’s on the floor with us. So, just where I’m at.”
It seems that both on and off the court, James is in a much better mindset than he was last season. He seems to be having way more fun playing the game, especially since the results are flooded with a lot more wins.
This new mindset from James should help the Lakers drastically if they start to lose games as he’ll be more emotionally equipped to deal with leading the team out of dark times.
Last season did not go as anybody expected, but it’s led to the great Lakers team that exists today and it seems James sees it that way as well.