NBA: Lakers Loss Is Good For The Rest of The League

With their loss to the Pheonix Suns, the Los Angeles Lakers accomplished something never done in Lebron James’ career. James has never exited the playoffs in the first round in 14 appearances. Thursday’s loss drops him to 14-1 proving not many in professional sports can achieve perfection.

But this isn’t a Lebron-bashing post. Look, I get it. You old-school basketball fans hate him for his comparisons to Michael Jordan. Jordan fans don’t hate him as much as Kobe fans, “how dare he call himself ‘The King’ when Kobe is still in the league?” and hate him even more now that he’s on Kobe’s team. However, the Lakers’ loss to the Pheonix Suns was a breath of fresh air for the NBA not for the haters, but the league as a whole.

Right now, the NBA is experiencing a transition of talent that the MLB enjoyed a few years ago. There is a youth movement that is getting overshadowed by the previous generation of stars. There’s talent coming who can be the next big star in the NBA but won’t get the center stage until the spotlight is off stars like Lebron James as much.

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That’s not James’ fault either. He deserves to go out and dominate and get his and make the young guys earn it. If he’s going to pass the torch, they should have to go through him to get there. Luckily for the playoffs this year, it won’t be in the finals.

If the Lakers made the push for a championship this year, all these sports networks would talk about is “If he wins another championship, what would it do for his legacy?” or “with this championship is he finally better than Jordan” and you’d never hear about the other side of the coin. The run of whatever team they’d face would get buried in the hype, and man does ESPN love them some Lebron hype.

Hate aside, the NBA needed the Lakers to lose in the first round, not even for the young generation’s sake. They need the stories of the veteran players who are pushing for their legacy.

Sure, people love a good dynasty as much as they love watching it crumble. People want to see Lebron James win, as much as they want to see him lose. It’s good for ratings. But at the end of the day, James casts a large shadow over the rest of the NBA and there’s plenty of talent in the league that deserves some face time with the casual fans.