Last night, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Houston Rockets in embarrassing fashion. The game was lost in overtime, and prior to the final frame, LeBron had a chance to win the game, although he passed up the shot to Carmelo Anthony, which was a move that was heavily criticized by all of the fans out there. Many are disappointed in LeBron, and even analysts have had enough with his lack of clutch shot-making this season.
For instance, Stephen A. Smith spoke about LeBron on First Take today, and as you can see in the clip below, Smith disqualified him from the GOAT conversation as the greatest player ever would have taken that shot. Smith thinks it shows a lack of determination from James, and that at the end of the day, he isn’t helping his team win as much as he should be.
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“When it comes to the GOAT conversation, you’re talking about those moments where you say to other people, ‘move the hell out the way. Let me close this for you so we can go the hell home.’ That’s not what [LeBron James] did last night,” Smith explained.
The LeBron discourse has been on full display this season, and not everyone is going to be in total agreement with it. That being said, it is clear this Lakers team needs a bit more from its stars, although at this point, most can agree that Russell Westbrook deserves the brunt of the blame here.