It’s unclear if Brian Windhorst, the ESPN reporter who covered the most LeBron James over the past 15 years, is embittered at being less close to the star, or if he simply has a fair and sharp look at his career. Still, the interested party delivered an uncompromising look at the King and what, according to him, is a fly in the ointment in his career: the fact of exhausting his teams and his franchises every four years.
That’s what he explained on Get Up this week.
“LeBron James works in four-year cycles. He’s draining his team, kind of organizational burnout, as I call it. It happened the first time in Cleveland. They were out of draft rounds and just veterans near the end like Shaq and Antawn Jamison.
He goes to Miami for four good years, then the Heat find themselves short of draft rounds. Three players retired after LeBron’s last game. He returns to Cleveland for four more good years. Then they have no more Draft rounds, only veterans. Here he is in Los Angeles, in his fourth year, with the oldest team in NBA history. No more draft rounds and a depleted franchise.”
However, Windhorst thinks that we should not necessarily bet on LeBron leaving at the end of the season, despite the few options available to the Lakers to rebuild on the ashes of what promises to be a disappointing end to the season. .
“I don’t think he wants to move from Los Angeles. His family is fine there and he now wants to enjoy the piece of the pie he got by going there.”
LeBron James is not at the end of the contract in any case, but his passive-aggressive communication since mid-season has suggested that he could at some point put pressure on management to, why not, be traded during the off-season…
LeBron James still forfeited, it’s getting complicated in LA
