Los Angeles Lakers May Have Reached Their Peak In LeBron James-Anthony Davis Era

All things considered, the 2022-23 season was a massive success for the Los Angeles Lakers.

However, despite one of the best performances of LeBron James’ 20-year career — 40 points overall, a career-high 31 points in the first half alone — the Lakers’ season is officially over following their 113-111 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.

That means despite James turning in a memorable performance while playing all but four seconds of Game 4, it wasn’t enough for Los Angeles to win at home against the Nuggets.

While this season certainly exceeded expectations — especially following their 2-10 start and 25-30 record prior to the Russell Westbrook trade — what this series revealed versus the Nuggets are the limitations of this Lakers squad led by the LeBron James/Anthony Davis pairing.

While both players remain productive, both looked outmatched when paired up against a younger star duo in Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.

Not only did Jokic outplay Davis throughout the series — he posted 30 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists in a “quiet” game by his standards — Murray was the perfect complement to Jokic and took over Games 2 and 4 when the Lakers appeared poised to win each of those games.

Despite trailing by 15 points at halftime, the Nuggets came out with more juice than the Lakers in the second half, a common theme in all four of these games. James unsurprisingly scored just nine points in the second half, with the 38-year-old failing to score a single point during the first nine minutes of the second half as the Nuggets outscored the Lakers 28-10 during that run.

Meanwhile, the 30-year-old Davis — who should be Los Angeles’ alpha by now after four seasons of teaming up with James — was a non-factor, scoring just two points during Denver’s game-changing run to begin the third quarter.

The reality of the situation is this — the Lakers are not winning another championship with the James/Davis duo. Assuming a third star is not acquired — Kyrie Irving is now being floated as a possible option — Los Angeles has already peaked with James and Davis.

Outside of the sheer fact that the James/Davis-led Lakers struggle to keep up with the younger, more athletic squads of the NBA such as the Nuggets, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, they’re simply not available very often on the court due to nagging injuries and just old age.

James has appeared in at least 60 games just once out of the past five seasons. He’s dealt with a foot injury since the midway point of the season and a possible looming surgery may not be something the 20-year veteran wants to go through. James left the idea of retirement on the table following the Lakers’ season-ending loss.

Meanwhile, Davis — like James — has surpassed the 60-game mark in a single season just once out of the past five seasons.

This is a major problem because the duo is not on the floor together enough for the Lakers to reap the rewards of their star pairing.

Los Angeles overachieved this season as they managed to stay afloat during James’ absence throughout the month of March — 8-5 record — and rode the momentum of their late-season push due to the strong play of their role players such as Austin Reaves.

Barring a trade involving Davis, the Lakers aren’t getting past the Western Conference Finals next season. The whole initial idea of pairing Davis with James when it happened back in 2019 was that it would allow the latter to ease up on his workload and defer to the former while winning multiple championships.

The problem is, James is still playing the role of Batman because Davis can only be an alpha on certain nights — not on a consistent basis. It’s understandably taking a toll on James as he misses more and more games as he gets older.

“I knew I could get to the finish line,” James told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “Obviously, I knew I had to deal with it and deal with the pain or deal with not being able to be myself before the injury, but there was nothing that made me feel like I couldn’t get to the finish line.”

Secondly, Davis’ own injury issues doesn’t exactly make him the ideal complement to James considering they’re both missing games on a lot of nights.

The positive to this season is that it gives the Lakers hope moving forward, especially when considering the play of young role players such as Reaves and Rui Hachimura. The negative is, Los Angeles likely won’t make any major trades involving Davis due to the false belief that they’re one step away from winning a title after making a conference finals appearance.

“Yeah, we know the window is always small and obviously he’s (James) not getting any younger,” Davis said. “You know, this is why this was so important to both of us, and it hurts that we didn’t get it done. But you know, we regroup, figure out ways we can be better. Figure out ways I can be better, more consistent for our ballclub and we come back next year ready to go.”

Assuming LeBron does come back, the Lakers will once again be a playoff team next season. Gone are the days of worrying about the Westbrook-influenced Lakers stinking up the joint with one of the worst records in the Western Conference.

However, the ultimate goal for James and the Lakers is a championship. And the way things are currently constructed, Los Angeles is not winning another championship with the James/Davis duo.

The only chance the Lakers have at winning another championship during the LeBron era is considering a trade involving Davis.

Maybe then the Lakers will be able to find a proper complement to James and win one more championship before his career is over.