Lakers Vs Heat
The 2022-23 season is a rough one for both LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, and it doesn’t look like it will add much to either of their legacies.
But when they play the Miami Heat on the road tonight, they have a moment of momentum from last night’s huge 129-110 win over the Magic in Orlando.
James led his team with 28 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, and some crazy athleticism that kept him from getting seriously hurt. But will he be able to do it again the next night, this time against the team he used to play for?
Will LeBron James, a star for the Lakers who is 37 years old, play two nights in a row?
If he is healthy, the King would not miss a chance to put on a show at the FTX Arena, where he won two championships during his four-year run from 2010 to 2014.
With the Lakers’ record at 14-20 and Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo possibly not being able to play, he’d want to get closer to.500. Even so, the Lakers have not yet released their list of injuries for the game.
Even though two of the Heat’s All-Stars won’t be playing, it won’t be an easy game for the Purple and Gold. Just last week, Kyle Lowry led them to a solid win against the Minnesota Timberwolves, bringing their record to 17-17.
How has LeBron been playing as of late?
What if we told you that the 18-time All-28 Star’s points in this game were the fewest he’s scored in the Lakers’ last 8 games? He must have missed most of the games, right?
In 7 of those 8 games, the 37-year-old has averaged more than 34 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists. Every time he steps on the hardwood, he changes the meaning of the word “real.”
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Why Rick Fox left the Boston Celtics and joined the Los Angeles Lakers
During the Shaq-Kobe era of the Los Angeles Lakers, Rick Fox was one of the best wing players. But before he joined one of the best dynasties ever, Fox made a lot of progress with the Boston Celtics, who were LA’s biggest rivals at the time.
A deal gone wrong
People who kept up with the Celtics after Larry Bird left probably knew who Fox was. The C’s picked up Fox from the University of North Carolina in 1991. Fox became a key player for the Celtics after Larry Bird left. In his sixth season with the legendary team, he scored 15.4 points per game and made 2.2 steals.
The Celtics gave Fox a huge contract extension because they liked what he did. It didn’t take long for everyone to agree on a deal worth a whopping $33 million. But nobody knew that the Celtics’ coach at the time, Rick Pitino, who said Fox was part of his plan for the C’s, was planning something else.
To Fox’s surprise, the $33 million deal was now in danger because Pitino was talking in secret with the Lakers about a deal in which backup center Travis Knight would sign with the Celtics. The deal with Knight was done. It was for $22 million over seven years.
Pitino, to be fair, also wanted to keep Fox, but the then-NBA commissioner, David Stern, told him that keeping both huge contracts would be against the league’s salary cap rules, so he had to choose which one to keep. Fox became a free agent that summer after the decision was made.
“I was very angry. It was very late in the game, and teams didn’t have any money left for free agents. So instead of making $33 million, I could have gotten $1 million. In Jeff Pearlman’s book “Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty,” Fox says, “That made me the hottest remaining free agent on the market.”
Going from green to purple
Fox was coming off the best season of his career, and he had some good offers from other teams. They might not have been worth $33 million, but they were definitely more than the $1 million the Lakers offered him. But Fox chose to take LA up on their offer and join the purple and gold.
Was there a hint of wanting to get back at the Celtics? Possibly. But it was clear that Fox’s decision to move from Boston to Los Angeles was the right one.
Fox’s role was less important on the Lakers, but he was part of a team that won three straight NBA titles.
Fox knew it was time to leave in 2004. But he also wanted to make up with the Celtics organization. So, Fox made a big deal out of going back to Boston and playing his last games in a green uniform, even though he was best known for playing for their biggest rivals.
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