LeBron James might well have sent a shot at Los Angeles Lakers front office after a horrific off-season has seen them continue with the same struggles that they went through last year.
It's been a frustrating start to the year once again, as they have lost all four of their opening games, with James being seen berate his teammates at times for poor decision making and has openly discussed their lack of shooting ability.
And in a recent Instagram post, James wrote: "How long will you be taken for granted?", in what some are deciphering as a shot towards the Lakers front office for not doing more to put the right players around him after failing to learn from last year's mistakes, considering the NBA legend only has a few years left in his playing career.
The 2021/22 campaign was an embarrassing one for the Lakers as they ended the season with a 33-49 record and finished 11th in the western conference standings. They did this with James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard on the roster.
The issue with the Lakers that year was their lack of an outside shot. They ranked as the 21st team out of 30 in three-point shooting with a 34% success rate from deep. This was an issue they would need to rectify in the off-season, and although they had little cap space to work with, it should not have been difficult to find capable shooters.
This year, the Lakers are 21.2% from the three-point range. They did not find one above average shooter, and actually lost a few of their better role players from the bench. Besides James, only Austin Reaves has shot the ball well from deep, and that's working with a small sample size.
James recently took aim at his own team-mates, saying they simply weren't shooting well enough. He said: "I think we’re getting great looks. But it could also be teams giving us great looks. Being completely honest, we’re not a team that’s constructed of great shooting. That’s just the truth of the matter. It’s not like we’re sitting here with a lot of lasers on our team."
The Lakers have little flexibility to make any significant moves with James, Davis and Westbrook on their pay sheet - all making the maximum amount that a player can make. And whilst James and Davis are fully deserving of their contracts, Westbrook continues to struggle, especially on the offensive side of the floor.
Not only does the explosive point guard shoot poorly from beyond the arc, he has continued to make poor decision on the offensive end - taking a shot with 17 seconds on the clock left, attacking the basket when the defence is set up to defend it, and just not giving the ball to arguably the best player of all-time in James.
Trade rumours have already started swirling on the Lakers, with Westbrook a name that is bound to pop up. Hornets guard Terry Rozier is reportedly being targeted by the Lakers, who could take Westbrook's place as the starting point-guard, a much better fit for James with Rozier's ability to shoot from deep whilst playing off-the-ball.
