At some level, horrible players can’t disappoint us. It’s all about expectations, right? The first step to being disappointed is setting the achievement bar somewhere higher than the ground. So when we talk about the NBA season’s most disappointing players, keep in mind they’ve already done something that had us anticipating some level of success. We react differently when they fall short of our preconceived target; even a performance that might otherwise be characterized as “good” by mere mortals can earn the “disappointing” label. That’s particularly true if, say, a player not only sustained his success in an unbroken string of excellence for two decades but had done so at an exalted, MVP-caliber level well into his late 30s.
LeBron James, the soon-to-be 40-year-old Los Angeles Lakers superstar who is, by his lofty standards, taking a rare excursion on the struggle bus. While the big news recently is that the Lakers have lost six of eight, including Wednesday’s humiliating 134-93 defeat in Miami, the bigger-picture story comes when you get to the “why”: James doesn’t seem capable of carrying a team by himself anymore… or even in tandem with another superstar.
This takes us to the Lakers, who are no longer able to rely on James to single-handedly carry them to the playoffs. Coming into the season, we knew this roster had some massive shortcomings. The lack of a third high-level starter, let alone a fourth and fifth one, and the sea of negative minutes coming from the bench augured that James and Anthony Davis would have to carry a massive burden to get Los Angeles to the playoffs, let alone beyond the first round. After All-NBA-caliber seasons from each a year ago, that didn’t seem like a big ask.
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