Deep in a playoff run and only one win away from a second straight World Series appearance, the sports gods decreed that baseball would take a break because LeBron James debuts with the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday.
The 2018-19 season finally tips off for James and the Lakers, though the debut curiously arrives two nights after the season officially started, on the road and in a rather hostile environment.
The Lakers have been swept by the Blazers in each of the past four seasons, and the last time the Lakers won in Oregon was way back in March of 2014 in a game that can best be described as a fluke.
Mike D'Antoni coached a team that started Pau Gasol, Wesley Johnson, Kendall Marshall, Jodie Meeks and Kent Bazemore, with Ryan Kelly, Robert Sacre, Marshon Brooks and Xavier Henry serving as the only contributors off the bench. That freak game can be described as D'Antoni's greatest coaching performance or the true measure of Gasol's greatness.
Since that miracle March night, the Lakers have lost 15 straight times to the Blazers. So, James has a rare opportunity to immediately turn the symbolic tide for the Lakers with a debut victory in a city that has historically haunted the Lakers.
More than most cities, Portland chants "Beat LA" with conviction, passion and consistency.
While Lakers' fans have permeated every NBA arena, Portland remains one of the few arenas where the home crowd is seemingly always in control of the atmosphere--even when the purple and gold come to visit.
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Portland has a team that can start the season in a dead sprint with Damian Lillard coming off an All-NBA First Team selection, C.J. McCollum making an argument to be an All-Star, Jusuf Nurkic possessing a unique skill set and a roster that has retained role players and maintained relative cohesion in the offseason.
The Lakers, meanwhile, are barely learning to crawl with James' arrival serving as a catalyst for massive roster changes. Rajon Rondo and JaVale McGee both expect to start on Thursday, and neither of them look like they belonged in Lakers' jersey until preseason rolled around and they took the court--especially former Boston Celtic Rondo.
The additions of Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson are the equivalent of cooking meat over a fire. If all goes well, the two veterans could turn out to be positive, digestible additions that serve a purpose. If all does not go well, though, the experiment could result in a stomach turning scene that features a heavy dose of regret and a promise never to attempt anything as reckless in the future.
If James is a porterhouse cooked at the finest of restaurants in an upscale Beverly Hills restaurant, Brandon Ingram is a hipster food truck in Silver Lake that is drawing longer and longer lines by the day after being reviewed in the Food section of the LA Times. Ingram's got a special, attractive flavor to his game, and while a great deal can be learned in sports with a hard work ethic, which the Kinston, North Carolina native has plenty of by all accounts, Ingram's natural length cannot be taught.
Fewer than two months past his 21st birthday, Ingram is already the second most important player on a team that can legitimately be considered one of the handful of championship contenders to start the season.
To start the 2018-19 season, the Lakers only trail the Rockets, Celtics and Warriors based on Las Vegas odds. The Raptors and Sixers have longer odds to win a title in 2019 than the Lakers according to oddsmakers.
Beyond James, Rondo's addition seems to be heralded with coaches and teammates fawning over the 2008 NBA champion's mental capacity and leadership on the court.
Rondo's addition not only eased the pressure on Ball not to rush back from offseason knee injury; it also allowed Ball to likely slot into a second unit with fellow sophomore Kyle Kuzma and, probably, Josh Hart. The trio has chemistry on and off the court, and three of the "core four" Lakers playing together on the second unit should be perceived as a positive in the long term.
How, exactly, the Lakers fit together will likely be a work in progress, but the Lakers' greatest assets are depth and youth--apart from James, of course.
Youth, depth and, most importantly, James will be take the court on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time.
