After Latest Late-Game Blunder, LeBron James Admits It: 'I'm Garbage'
You do not get to be one of the greatest players in NBA history by demonstrating a lack of self-awareness or an inflated sense of your own worth as a player.
Just ask LeBron James, whose missed free throws nearly cost the Lakers a home win against the lowly Atlanta Hawks on Sunday.
After the game, which the Lakers won 107-106 for reasons we’ll get to in a minute, James had a simple two-word assessment of his own performance: “I’m garbage.”
“I’m garbage. I suck from the free throw line right now.” – LeBron ? pic.twitter.com/vmn4A5uNce
— Randy Cruz (@randyjcruz) November 12, 2018
Meanwhile, fans can’t help but wonder if he’s been taking free-throw shooting advice from Lonzo Ball and Rajon Rondo, the Lakers’ two charity stripe-averse point guards.
Of course, because he’s LeBron James, he still got to play the hero, throwing down what was a career-first even for him: A game-winning shot that came on a slam dunk.
Chaos at Staples Center.
LeBron misses two free throws with game on the line AGAIN, but gets the tip slam to go up 1 pic.twitter.com/AmRiYNnmcK— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) November 12, 2018
It’s been a continuing problem for LeBron at the line, admittedly with a tiny sample size, in the final minute this season.
The good: LeBron James had his first career game-winning dunk in the final minute of a game (regular season or playoffs)
The bad: James is 1-6 from the free throw line in the final minute of a one-possession game this season, and has the most misses by any player.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 12, 2018
The moral of the story, besides “box out on a missed free throw and get the rebound” if you’re the Hawks, is that if you’re one of the greatest of all time, you take no more than a couple of seconds to lament your mistakes before you make good on them and come up clutch.
And then, as if favored by the basketball gods for his diligence, James was rescued at the other end of the floor by a game-saving block from the newest Laker, Tyson Chandler, to seal the win.
TYSON CHANDLER WITH THE GAME-SAVING BLOCK! ?#LakeShow | #CrunchTime pic.twitter.com/nsOjCwGcnU
— NBA TV (@NBATV) November 12, 2018
All the same, James was a horrendous 3-of-7 from the line in the game, just 42.9 percent. That’s definitely something he’ll need to address, even though his overall free throw percentage this season, at 73.6 percent, is right in line with the 73.9 mark he’s posted for his career.
What’s more concerning is LeBron shooting just 50.4 percent from the field and 31.6 percent from three; both marks are huge dropoffs from his last two years in Cleveland (54.8 and 54.2 from the field in 2016-17 and ’17-18, 36.3 and 36.7 from three.)
In his 16th season and with a G-League team for a roster around him made up of castoffs, nobodies and overrated young guys like Ball and Brandon Ingram, James might finally have found his Sisyphean boulder on a 7-6 Lakers team.
After all, you could have a chili dog from Art’s in Los Angeles, one of the greatest foods that ever existed or will exist in this world — the LeBron James of lunch items — but if you throw it in a trash can, it’s still garbage.
So maybe let’s not be too hard on LeBron for having to hoist that trash Lakers team on his shoulders, for heavy is his burden.
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