Jim Alexander: Are there any meaningful games left for LeBron James?

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — LeBron James, speaking at the Lakers’ preseason media day on Monday, positively gushed when asked about the opportunity to play games that truly mattered this summer in Paris with “USA” on his jersey.

“It felt great to play meaningful basketball, like literally play (at) the highest level,” he said of the Olympic campaign that ended with his third gold medal. “You know, we had like two Game 7s back to back, one versus Serbia and then that last one versus France, where it was like like, ‘Oh, (expletive), this is why those text messages (to teammates) went out. This is why those calls happened.’ You know, that fire and desire was brought back to me and I was like, ‘Okay, this is what it was all about. This is why we all came together and called ourselves The Avengers.’

“Every possession means something. If you make a mistake, it burns you. That was good to relive that … going against those two great teams.”

Which brings up a question. Will LeBron ever have the chance to experience such moments again in a Lakers uniform?

In Paris, he was the tournament MVP while relinquishing the burden of having to play big minutes every night and, at times, having to play every position on the floor. He averaged around 24 1/2 minutes per game – and didn’t need to play more than 30, in 40-minute games, until the aforementioned Serbia and France games – and averaged 14.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 10.2 assists.

(His 51 assists for the Olympic tournament, by the way, were third all-time for a USA player behind Leon Wood – St. Monica High’s and Cal State Fullerton’s own, and now an NBA referee – with 63 in the 1984 Games in L.A., and North Carolina’s Phil Ford with 54 in 1976 in Montréal.)

But now James returns to a team where the biggest storylines as the season begins are how JJ Redick establishes himself as a first-year head coach, and whether Bronny James will start the season as a teammate of his dad or with the G-League’s South Bay Lakers.

Let’s be honest: LeBron spent the summer with Olympians, fellow NBA stars. Now he’s back in purple and gold, and once you get past fellow Olympian Anthony Davis and maybe Austin Reaves, these Lakers are a play-in round-caliber roster until they prove otherwise.

Since LeBron committed to the Lakers in July of 2018, the burden primarily has been his when healthy enough to be in uniform – 35.2 minutes per game in his six seasons in L.A., including 35.5 and 35.3 the last two seasons even with an initiative to reduce his minutes to keep him fresh. Then again, when James played 71 games last season, that was his heaviest workload in four seasons because of injuries.

How many of those meaningful games has he played in as a Laker? There was the run to the franchise’s 17th NBA championship in 2020 in the Orlando bubble, a season that included a 4 1/2-month break because of COVID-19 (which might have enabled James and Anthony Davis to catch their second wind before the regular season resumed July 30). And there was a run to the conference finals in 2023 after the Lakers dug their way out of a 2-10 start, only to be stymied in a four-game sweep by eventual champion Denver.

Otherwise, the Lakers missed the playoffs in 2019 and 2022 and went out in the first round in 2021 and last spring. And in ’21, ’23 and ’24, they had to win play-in games to reach the first round. A couple of years ago, vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka talked about owing it to LeBron to provide a championship-caliber roster. Judge for yourself.

But maybe this season turns out to be the greatest basketball story ever told, in which LeBron – who, we remind you, turns 40 on Dec. 30 – and Davis and the rest confound their opponents and the experts alike, win the Lakers’ own banner No. 18 and make geniuses out of Redick and Pelinka, among others.

I know. I’m not convinced either, not yet.

By James’ account, he came out of this Olympic summer well, “really good” physically and mentally “really sharp, very fresh.” And at least at this point there will be no reflection or melancholy about all of those tasks that have become so routine over 21 seasons of professional basketball. Any thoughts of his future? Forget about it.

“Kind of just living in the moment,” he said. “Especially with Bronny being here too, I don’t want to take this moment for granted. I’ve always kind of never gave myself an opportunity to kind of just like, you know, I guess, you know, take in the moments. But this is the moment that I may, you know, enjoy a little bit more than just like my actual self.”

But yes, there will probably be some awkwardness. If you are or were a parent of an adolescent or a young adult, you know how it goes.

“At my age and his age, there’s not really much interaction going on on a day-to-day basis,” LeBron said. “He comes down, he eats, he goes to his room, plays his video games. I’m down there with my wife, we’re watching a movie. It’s not like, ‘Hey, meet me at the table at 5 o’clock, we need to discuss work tomorrow.’”

Or, as Bronny quipped Monday when asked if he would be carpooling with his dad to the training facility: “Um, definitely not. There’s already so much that we’ve been grouped together as. I’d like to stay as far away as possible from that guy.”

Kids these days.

When you’ve made it to a 22nd season in the best basketball league in the world, you’ve got to have a certain amount of … what? Confidence? Stubbornness? Certainty that you can still do what you’ve always done? LeBron still has it, and those games in Paris didn’t dampen that conviction.

“It gave me even more a sense of – okay, I do have a lot in the tank, a lot,” he said. “And I can … be a big part of a team (winning) the ultimate, if it’s gold or if it’s the Larry O’Brien Trophy or whatever the case may be. I can still get it done.”

That would be quite the story, even without the father-son angle.

____