Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
LeBron speaks out: ‘Nothing is normal in 2020’
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. » LeBron James keeps hearing the same questions. How’s it going? How’s the bubble?
He now has a one-size-fits-all answer.
“I just say it’s 2020,” James said. “Nothing is normal in 2020.”
That’s not entirely true. The NBA is a few weeks from playoff mode, and James -- just like normal — has himself and the Los Angeles Lakers squarely in the mix to compete for championship. It is a rare bit of normalcy for a player who appeared in eight consecutive NBA Finals from 2011 through and including 2018, and for a franchise that has won 16 championships.
Everything else about this year has been most abnormal. A pandemic suspended play. David Stern, the NBA’s commissioner emeritus, died. Kobe Bryant, who was the third-leading scorer in NBA history until James passed him on Jan. 25, died in a helicopter crash the following day. And now James, the Lakers and 21 other teams are at Walt Disney World, separated from the rest of the world, trying to salvage a season and decide a champion.
James took Bryant’s death — the Lakers’ star died along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others on the morning of Jan. 26 — particularly hard.
“A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about him,” James said. “A day doesn’t go by where our organization does not remember him and think about not only Kob, but Gigi, (his wife) Vanessa and their girls. They are a part of this family.”
Lakers coach Frank Vogel has seen playoff-season James three times before — never liking how those experiences went. Vogel was coaching Indiana and his three best seasons there saw the Pacers matched up with James and the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference playoffs.