This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. The people of Britain love their fancy blenders. They've bought loads of them. And luckily, if they bought them with Barclay Card, they earned rewards. In fact, they'll earn rewards on all their eligible purchases. It's a more convenient way to consume your fruit and veg. What you buy is your business. Giving you rewards on purchases is ours. Barclay Card. Back in your future. 28.9% APR representative variable subject to application, financial circumstances and borrowing history. Teas and seas apply. The volume. Welcome to Hoops and I here at The Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. I've got a quick show for you guys today. As you guys know, this is very typical for when LeBron James gets eliminated from the playoffs, but there is a particular group of fans that seems to come out of the woodwork and start wanting to reevaluate everything about his career. And like, here's the thing. It's obviously completely absurd. The dude is 41 years old. I don't know how you could literally be anything other than impressed by what just happened over the course of the last month and a half after Luca Donchich went down with his hamstring injury. And I'd extend that to basically three months, dating back to mid-February when the Lakers first started to go on their run after the All-Star break. And LeBron embraced his smaller role and helped the team have its most dominant month since the Russell Westbrook trade, basically. Right? So like, I don't, I don't know how you could feel any way other than impressed and just say positive things, but like, that's just kind of the nature of the beast. It is what it is. But I do find the conversation fascinating. This idea, like, was LeBron's tenure in LA a failure. It's not even over. We'll see. He's probably going to come back and I think the Lakers will have at least a second tier championship contender type of team next season. If they do bring everybody back, or at least, you know, the core of the team plus some mild tweaks here or there, but like, let's say this is LeBron's final game is LeBron's Laker tenure a failure. I want to dive into that concept a little bit. You guys know the drill before you started to subscribe to the Hoops on YouTube channel. So you don't miss any more of our videos. We're in the pathway to 150,000 subs. So it means a lot to me if you guys take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. If you're already subscribed, like this video, sign up for post notifications. That helps us a lot. Let's talk some basketball. So to me, this question is actually a very simple answer. Like, is the LeBron Laker tenure a failure? I do think so, just not for him. LeBron won a championship with the Lakers. And I know there are some people that try to poo poo on the the bubble ring, but that's obviously completely absurd. They started the season 24 and three. They were clearly the best team all year long. When the COVID shutdown happened, they were at a 64 win pace. This year's Thunder team had 64 wins. And we view them as an all time great team. That team was the best team all year long. They had the best player all year long in LeBron James. And they kicked everyone's ass in the bubble. No one even came remotely close to threatening them. They were one of the more clear cut champions in NBA history relative to like the entire journey, not like a team that came out of the woodwork and won, but they were like the best team before the season, after the AD trade, after the AD trade in terms of expectations. They were the best team when they started playing basketball. They were the best team when they finished playing basketball, including like big moments like LeBron right before the COVID shutdown, beating the Clippers and badly outplaying Kawhi, beating the Bucks and badly outplaying Yanis. Like that was as straightforward a championship as I can remember in terms of just what a basketball team accomplished from start to finish. So they won a championship. So like the idea of LeBron, if you want to think that LeBron's Laker tenure was a failure, then now you think that Jason Tatum's time in Boston was a failure because he only got one championship. You think that Yokech's time in Denver was a failure because he only got one championship. You think Dirk's time in Dallas was a failure because he only got one championship. Or Yanis's time in Milwaukee. It like it literally doesn't make sense. LeBron's career just with the Lakers matches in accomplishments, many of the all-time greats. So the idea of it being a failure for LeBron is absurd. But is it a failure that the Los Angeles Lakers, the most popular brand in basketball that operates at an advantage in so many different ways because of that brand and because of the city in which they reside? Is it a failure that they only managed to win one championship with this guy? Yeah. This is a crazy staff for you guys. If you total up the plus minus from every single season that LeBron played with the Lakers, when he was on the floor, they were plus 1,225. When he was off the floor, they were minus 664. That is an absurd level of impact on both ends of the floor to where you're basically looking at best team in the league level production when he's out there and one of the worst teams in the league when he's off the floor. And this is where it comes down to the real failure of this era, which lies in the leadership of the Lakers. It lies with Jeanne Buss and Rob Polinka. Put it very simply. If you get handed LeBron James in his mid 30s, 35 years old, 34 years old, technically, and LeBron through his connections and his friendships brings in one of the top 10 players in the league. And you have them perennially for a span where like all the way through 2024, Anthony Davis and LeBron were both still awesome. AD started to have injury problems in 2025, but LeBron was still awesome. Really that stretch right around the All-Star break last year was the last time LeBron played at that like best player in the world type of level that he hasn't been able to recapture since then. We're talking about a six season window in there where you have two players of that impact. Literally all you have to do is just every year just make mild tweaks, find a player on the margins here, hit on a draft pick there, maybe not do something stupid in a trade where you ship off all your good players and take back a bad player. And I know all the LeBron detractors are the first ones to point out that LeBron wanted Russell Westbrook. And I've never accepted that as reasoning for why Rob Polinka made that trade. 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You didn't know you could get club card prices on Tesco Travel Insurance? Get away! Save 15% on your travel insurance in our summer sale and join over one million customers who've already trusted us with their cover by direct using your club card to get 15% off. But only until the 8th of July. Don't miss our summer sale. Search Tesco Travel Insurance and get a quote direct today, underwritten by AWP PNC SA. Offer exclusive add-ons, T's and C's apply. Rob Polinka is the basketball expert in that front office. His job is to decide what players are on the team. And most importantly, it's his job to sell to LeBron and to the owner why it's a bad idea to go trade for Russell Westbrook. I sold real estate before I started doing this for a living. And my clients would occasionally come to me with a bad idea. I want to ask for this. I don't want to ask for that. I want to buy this. I don't want to buy that. And it was my job, with my expertise, to explain to them why that was a good idea or why it was a bad idea. To give them advice. And that was harder for me because they actually got the last decision. There were times where my clients wanted to proceed with something that I thought was a bad idea and I had no choice to be like, okay, I'll make the phone call. I'll draft up the contract. Like for LeBron, Rob actually had the authority to look at him and be like, no, dude, not doing it. And like there are trades in NBA history where they're not doing it. Where there's some upside and there's some downside. Take Cam Johnson when he got traded to Denver this year. I thought it was a really good idea, but it was like this could be a good idea. This could be a bad idea. Cam had his moments. I thought he played well towards the tail end of the Timberwolves series, but that lack of size at the rim in Michael Porter Jr. and that lack of consistent, aggressive shooting. I think you could make the case that that was a bad trade. You absolutely could make that case. But at the moment, there was some debate as to whether or not it was the right deal, even though I had a leaning. When the Russell Westbrook trade was in the pipeline, immediately everyone that I know that had, you know, some stake in the Lakers as a fan was like, this is stupid. Don't do this. Everyone I know that covered the league was like, this is stupid. Don't do this. Russ isn't good anymore. He's duplicative with LeBron. He can't shoot. He's not a good defensive player. He's a huge salary that requires you to send out a bunch of your most important players. It was obviously a bad decision at the time. It was like, it was like Adrian Wojnarowski was like breaking sources. Rob Polinka about to shoot himself in the foot. That's literally what it sounded like when you read the tweet for the first time. So like, I, the, the, it was such an obvious act of self-sabotage that I believe Rob Polinka holds the responsibility for not going to LeBron and being like, dude, no, this isn't the guy or being able to go to Genie and being like, I know LeBron wants this, but this is why we can't do this. That is your job. You are the expert and unlike a real estate agent, you have final authority. In this case, you're the general manager. You're the guy who picks up the phone and calls the leak. And so there was between the lack of the, the lack of those little tiny wins that you need to sustain success, like the Lakers don't have literally a single player on the roster right now, who is a rotation level player that they got from the draft since 2022. They bombed on all their first round picks and all of their second round picks since 2022. We're about to have the 2026 draft this year. Do you know how hard it is to have a GM foolishly gift wrap you Luca Doncic? And in return, only have to give up obviously the one first round pick, but to only have to give up Anthony Davis as your matching star and one additional rotation player. That's it. And they give you Luca Doncic and you're not a championship contender in the top tier. You're just a smittling second tier team that's deeply flawed, like so many other teams that we see every year. You know how hard that is? Do you know how hard it is to, since the Russell Westbrook trade, so since that trade happened in the summer of 2022 or 2021, they literally have not been. There hasn't been a single season where you went into it from the start and we're like, the Lakers are among the most talented teams in the league this year. And every single year they either had LeBron and AD or LeBron and Luca. Do you understand how insane that is? 2022, you're like, yeah, middleing tier team 2023, middleing tier team, that 2024, middleing tier team 2025, 2026. They've never been viewed as one of the most talented teams in the league and they've been gift wrapped LeBron by choosing them. Anthony Davis through his LeBron connections, Luca Doncic through a GM, basically soiling himself for the world to see. It is so difficult to mismanage that the way they have. And so when I look at that and I see a player who's so good for so long in a Lakers Jersey that you're plus 12, 25 when he's on the floor and minus 664 with him off and who through his connections brings you Anthony Davis, who tangentially brings you Luca Doncic through a mistake that another GM made and you get one championship. Yeah, I actually do think that's a failure. It's a failure of the leadership of the Los Angeles Lakers. But LeBron's career in a Lakers Jersey, he won a championship and there's just a lot of dudes that you would never call a failure who won one championship in a long tenure with the team. So it ain't LeBron's failure. But yeah, it's pretty ridiculous that you had a player that good for that long and you only got one championship out of him this whole time. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back tonight after the final buzzer of Pistons Cavs Game 5. I'll see you guys then. What a scream. We installed telephone wires across rural Britain over a century ago and you're still paying to use them for your broadband today. If it ain't broke, what? Stop! Your days of selling phone age broadband are over. Blast! I've spilled the beans. Upgrade to 100% full fiber. Gigaclear. Faster broadband for rural Britain from only 19 pounds a month. Price may rise during contract. Teasing fees apply. Check availability at gigaclear.com. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.
