Los Angeles Lakers: Three things we have learned from Summer League
By Jason Reed
3. LeBron James is going to be a great leader for this young core
LeBron James is undoubtedly the best basketball player on the planet, nobody really questions that. James also makes any team he joins a contender, nobody questions that either. The one thing that is often questioned about James is his ability to be a good leader. While he makes teams better on the court, it is his off the court antics that lead to questions.
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With James joining a young core, nobody really knows what to expect. Is he going to try to get the team to trade pieces away for established guys? Is he going to come in and ruin the chemistry that the trio of Hart, Ball and Kuzma have developed? Will the pressure of playing alongside James negatively affect the team, like it did with Jordan Clarkson?
Heck, last summer James attended a Lakers’ Summer League game instead of a Cleveland Cavaliers game. That is really where the seeds for this eventual signing started and showed that James was more invested in his future outside of Cleveland than in Cleveland.
And while coming to LA may have been a lifestyle choice, James is obviously invested in this team and what it takes to be a Laker. Why else would LeBron attend a Summer League game, rocking Lakers shorts mind you, when at most three of the players will be on the roster during the season?
LeBron really has no incentive to come to these games. He essentially is watching the G League team with Hart, Wagner and Mykhailiuk sprinkled in. I am sure he has a television at his LA mansion, he doesn’t need to make the trip to Vegas.
But he did and he did it with a huge smile on his face and continuously got hyped when the Lakers did something great. He made his presence felt but did not take over the spotlight from the action on the court.
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He proudly rocked the purple and gold for the first time in public, finally making all of this seem like reality. For any Lakers fans that were still on the fence about LeBron, don’t be. He is going to be the best thing to happen to the Lakers since trading for Kobe Bryant‘s draft rights.