The Los Angeles Lakers have won 20 of 24 games and now, after an uneven start to the season, have NBA fans wondering whether the team is a legitimate championship contender. We’re about to find out over their next four road games, starting Saturday when the team plays the franchise currently in possession of the trophy, the Boston Celtics.
In 2020, LeBron James and Anthony Davis led the Purple and Gold to championship No. 17, moving the franchise into a tie with Boston for most in league history. Last summer, Boston broke that tie. Now, behind the play of James and new running mate Luka Doncic, one can’t help but get excited about the possibility of these two longtime rivals slugging it out once again come June. Maybe if James beats the hated Celtics in the NBA Finals, longtime Lakers fans will be OK with him having a statue at Star Plaza.
Maybe.
It’s a touchy subject given that real estate is normally reserved for players who have put in more years with the franchise than James has. Although this is his 22nd season in the NBA, it’s just his seventh with the Lakers. So while he has scored more points than Kobe Bryant, dished more assists than Magic Johnson and grabbed more rebounds than Elgin Baylor — he didn’t do it all for the Lakers.
The issue is that every other championship the franchise has won since moving from Minneapolis to L.A. in 1960 — starting with Jerry West and the 1972 team — is represented by a statue in that plaza outside Crypto.com Arena. It would be odd not to immortalize championship No. 17 in the same way. It takes a high level of cognitive dissonance to be both proud of an accomplishment and not want to acknowledge who accomplished it.
Even if that were resolved in favor of honoring James, there remains the larger question: What are statues for?
I was in middle school when the iconic Joe Louis monument “The Fist” was dedicated in downtown Detroit. At the time I only saw the 24-foot bronze statue through the lens of boxing. In high school, I learned Louis wasn’t born in the Motor City but in Lafayette, Ala., in 1914. His family relocated to Michigan in the 1920s, coinciding with the rise of the KKK.
That was the first time I began to see the full scope of the Great Migration and understand why most families in my neighborhood had roots in the South. By the time I left for college, “The Fist” reminded me of boxing less and the resiliency of Black people more.
Just as I rarely think about football when I attend Arizona Cardinal games and walk past the statue of Pat Tillman, who left the NFL in May 2002 to enlist in the Army shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. He gave up millions to defend this country, and he made the ultimate sacrifice. That registers with me more than his playing career. I suspect I’m not alone.
Whether it’s “The Fist,” Tillman’s memorial or a sculpture of Oscar De La Hoya — the Mexican American kid out of East L.A. who went on to become an international superstar— the story of a statue is always more than the game.
And yes, the precedent for a statue at Star Plaza is one that typically requires more years than perhaps James will ultimately spend in a Lakers uniform. Shaquille O’Neal was with the team for only eight seasons, but half of them ended in the NBA Finals. Half of James’ time in L.A. has been him losing in the first round or worse. And there’s plenty of reasons why the thought of a James statue next to the Showtime Lakers just feels wrong.
Unless you think about the larger question: What are statues for.
James’ mother had him when she was 16. His father was not in the picture. Growing up in poverty, he experienced housing insecurity and moved as many as 10 times in one calendar year before he was 9. By his junior year in high school, Sports Illustrated named him “The Chosen One.” Today he has stakes in Liverpool FC, the Boston Red Sox and Major League Pickleball. He is the first NBA player to become a billionaire while playing. And he is the first 40-year-old still expected to lead a team to a championship.
We’ll see how realistic those expectations are during this upcoming road trip. Three of the four teams they face — Milwaukee, Denver and Boston — have won the title since the Lakers did it in 2020 and combined have won 64% of their home games. At the end of this stretch, fans in L.A. will either be slightly deflated or thinking about parade routes. Paired with Doncic, who led Dallas to the Finals last year, James appears poised to add even more accolades to his basketball resume. If the year ends with No. 18, not only will L.A. be tied again with Boston for the most titles, but also James will become a greater part of Lakers folklore.
Maybe then die-hard fans will overwhelmingly want to see the top scorer in NBA history depicted in the plaza.
Though oddly the longer he plays, the less I think about him as just a great player. Now he represents one of the most inspiring stories about achieving the American Dream that America has ever seen.