It started as a whisper. Then, over the past few weeks, it grew into something louder. The Los Angeles Lakers, the argument goes, may actually be better off without LeBron James.
The numbers behind that argument are real enough. With Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves running the show during LeBron’s absence, the Lakers went eight and two in a ten-game stretch. The offense looked more structured. The ball moved more freely. Doncic and Reaves, combining for an average of 56.8 points per game between them, looked like a backcourt pairing capable of carrying a contender without needing a third star to share the load.
LeBron’s agent and longtime confidant Rich Paul heard all of it and responded without hesitation.
Paul makes his case
On a recent podcast episode, Paul dismissed the narrative directly and without much diplomatic softening. His position was straightforward. No team in the history of basketball, he argued, has ever been better without LeBron James. The current Lakers team is no exception. What looks like a team thriving in LeBron’s absence, he suggested, is actually a team still figuring out how to deploy one of the most complete players the game has ever seen alongside two younger creators who command the ball.
The challenge Paul pointed to is not one of talent. It is one of adjustment. LeBron has spent the overwhelming majority of his career as the primary ball handler and decision-maker. Reorienting that role in his 23rd season, building a version of his game around off-ball movement and gap-filling rather than creation, takes time to calibrate. The stretches where the team looks more cohesive without him, Paul argued, reflect that ongoing calibration rather than some fundamental truth about the team’s ceiling.
What LeBron still brings
The numbers in LeBron’s current season tell part of the story. He is averaging 21.2 points, 6.9 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game at 41 years old. Those are not the numbers of a player who has fallen off a cliff. They are the numbers of a player managing his body and his role with the kind of self-awareness that comes from two decades of elite competition.
Paul’s broader argument is rooted in a playoff context rather than regular season optics. Doncic will face intense defensive pressure in the postseason, as opposing teams will dedicate significant resources to limiting his impact. If defenses succeed in containing him and Reaves is unable to fully absorb the offensive load, the Lakers will need LeBron to step into that void. His ability to read a game, slow it down when necessary and make the right play at the right moment is not something that disappears because his usage rate has dropped.
The bigger picture
There is a reasonable version of both arguments. The Lakers are a more dynamic team when Doncic and Reaves are dictating the pace and LeBron is operating as a high-efficiency complementary piece. That much has become clear. But the version of this team most likely to make a deep playoff run is the one where all three are available, healthy and operating within a system that maximizes what each of them does best.
Paul’s point is not that the current arrangement is broken. It is that writing LeBron out of the equation entirely misreads what the Lakers are actually building. When April arrives and the margins shrink, having a four-time champion who has been there before tends to matter more than the regular season record suggests.
