LeBron James has made it clear that at this stage of his career he is only playing to compete for championships, but unfortunately, the Los Angeles Lakers fell well short of that as the Minnesota Timberwolves defeated them in five games in the first round.
After a rough series like that, it’s natural for someone like James to feel all sorts of emotions and he described them in the latest episode of his “Mind the Game” podcast with Steve Nash:
“Like you just said, you unravel all of those emotions. And I’ve unraveled all of them in the sense of give me space, going back analytically seeing what I could’ve done better, what we could’ve done better, thinking about the individual matchups, thinking about their team versus our team, thing we could’ve done better. It all has entered my mind since Wednesday night when it was over with. I’ve had a few days, each day has been something different. Obviously I’ve come to grips with it now being quite a few days after the fact and watching a lot of the other series’ now and how they unfold. But you said it, I’ve had all those emotions to the point where it’s like shit, we ended the season well but like you said, when it comes to the postseason, it doesn’t determine how well of a regular season you had, it’s the matchups and we ran into a damn good matchup. A team that’s been battle-tested and a team that’s hungry, a team that has a lot of youth but also experience at the same time and a team that’s trying to take the next step. They were a worthy opponent, that’s for sure.”
LeBron and the Lakers certainly had their chances as Games 3, 4 and 5 were all close contests in the fourth quarter that L.A. just couldn’t close out.
While James has been noncommittal about his future with the Lakers and in the NBA, he clearly still has that passion and drive to be great. The early expectation is that he will return to the Lakers for the 2025-26 season, and if that’s the case then he and the rest of the team should use this first round loss as fuel to avoid it happening again a year from now.
Rob Pelinka knows LeBron James will have high expectations for Lakers’ roster
If the Lakers are gonna get back into championship contention then they must improve the roster this offseason, and Rob Pelinka knows LeBron James will have high expectations.
“I think LeBron is gonna have high expectations for the roster and we’re gonna do everything we can to meet those,” Pelinka said. “But I also know that whatever it is, he’s gonna still give his 100% every night, whether that’s scoring, assisting, defending, rebounding, leading. We know that’s gonna always be 100% and never waver.”
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