LeBron Is Worried About Home-Court Advantage, Forgetting He’s Never Played A Playoff Game As A Laker

As the Portland Trailblazers closed-out the play-in series against the Memphis Grizzlies in one game (a very entertaining one, notably), the now-eight-seeded Western Conference challengers have seen their odds-to-win since the “NBA Restart” skyrocket toward realistic heights, while the top-seeded bid to LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers has never appeared as dreadful as now all season long.

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“Clinching the one seed, is there an advantage here? There’s not much of a home-court advantage here,” LeBron recently proclaimed when forecasting a look into what the NBA Playoffs post-pandemic will look like for top-seeded teams.

And while one couldn’t really argue with such a downtrodden assertion, the King may be in recollection of his NBA fourth-most 239 all-time playoff game appearances being forged in tightly-knit surrounding locations such as “Believe-land”, Ohio and the “Not Six, Not Seven…” South Beach area.

He just may be forgetting that his current lovably lackadaisical Lakers fan base a la Staples Center, dating back to the Shaq & Kobe era, has never been exactly known for vivacious vocal gusto, from regular season all the way to Finals appearances.

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I say this because I am one of them, and have wondered when they would show up in years past, never having the question quite answered in confidence. All of the tenaciously lengthy battles in back-and-forth first and second-round postseason series, marred by the road game vitriol of the Pepsi Centers and Vivint Smart Home Arenas of the world.

Getting “home-court” as a Lakers fan was simply a phrase to toss around to know which unis you could expect to see in the next game; never testament to a collectively screaming Sixth Man effort to look forward to. Many have attributed this lacking feature to a folly by fair-weathered SoCal sports fans, which when considering the likes of LA Kings hockey die-hards is a tad dismissive.

Could LeBron’s statement be seen more as prior justification to if they do in fact lose to Portland in the first round? He’s attempting to cover some bases, sure. But there’s also a strong possibility that, having missed the playoffs in his first season in the Purple & Gold, he may simply (and naturally) forgetting that all of his years spent racking up memorable playoff mileage were at arenas starved of championship credo.

On the contrary, there’s also a strong possibility that the Lakers’ would-be Portland opponent at the time of that statement (and now confirmed) has, since the NBA Restart, thrust themselves from 200-to-1 Championship odds all the way to 25/1. And with seemingly all the right healthy pieces to dismantle the top-seeded Lakers: a near-infinitely talented back-court tandem in Lillard/McCollum, further complimented by an ever-dominant center in Jusuf Nurkic.

Virtual fans and artificial crowd noise aside…this one is going to be a doozy.