Some sports brands are simply stronger than others.
Just ask LeBron James, who inked a four-year $153.3 million free agent contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday evening. Or maybe it was the BIGGER brand of Magic Johnson that closed the deal. The current president of basketball operations for the Lakers, Magic’s legacy is much like LeBron’s – legendary and historic. Now Johnson is focused on trading for Spurs star Kawhi Leonard to build a squad that can compete in the highly competitive Western Conference.
I remain a staunch opponent of this trend of building super teams in the NBA. While I respect Kevin Durant and think he is a hell of a player, I do not look at his two championships with the Warriors as “earned.” On the flip side, I do fully respect Kyrie Irving for wanting to blaze his own trail and not play second fiddle to LeBron in Cleveland. I will say this though – LeBron to the Lakers makes the West much more of a fun challenge to watch with Houston and Golden State. And don’t forget OKC, who got Paul George to commit to stay, rather than join LeBron in LA (kudos, PG13).
Where does that leave the Mavericks? Well, while the big fish free agents are making all the headlines these days, Mark Cuban and the Mavs are slowly building a core of their own to compete with the big boys, and maybe sooner than later. Dallas added a key piece in 30-year old free agent big man DeAndre Jordan (we won’t rehash the events of three summers ago when he spurned the Mavs; all fences have been mended). The bottom line is that they have added an all-world player in Luka Doncic to match with a young Dennis Smith, Jr. and Jordan, and in the process have sped up the process to become competitive again. Is Doncic the next Dirk or will he be just another European experiment that failed in the NBA? I’m not sure how good he’ll be but I’m betting he will be closer to a stud than a bust.
Meanwhile, the good news is that with LeBron heading West, the Celtics now become the front-runners to make the Finals in the East. The greatest rivalry in the NBA remains Celtics-Lakers and maybe we can be treated to more of that in the near future.
If James can help deliver a title to the Lakers, he will join Robert Horry (Rockets, Lakers, Spurs) and John Salley (Pistons, Bulls, Lakers) as the only players to win three titles with three teams. And LeBron seemed destined to one day join the Lakers, as now six of the top-eight all-time leading scorers in league history have played for Los Angeles. James currently ranks seventh with 31,038 points, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O’Neal as Lakers in that top-eight. The outliers – Michael Jordan and Dirk Nowitzki.
Magic Johnson isn’t among those eight, but he is certainly on many historian’s lists of best players to ever play the game. He said publicly recently that he would step down if he were unable to deliver top free agents to the Lakers over the next two years.
Looks like his job is safe.
