Byron Scott thinks LeBron James was never fully accepted or embraced by Los Angeles Lakers fans due to the franchise’s attachment to Kobe Bryant and the championship expectations. That played a major role in this complicated relationship.
Speaking on 97.1 The Fan LA, the former Lakers player and host explained why LeBron remained such a polarizing figure despite his eight-year tenure in Los Angeles.
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“It was interesting like you said, there’s no in between. There’s either you hate him or you love him for whatever reason. And I think a lot of it has to do with KB. You have so many people here in Los Angeles that love Kobe.”
“So LeBron coming here was not something that they really embraced. I think we here in Los Angeles, when you have one championship only in the last eight or nine years, that’s not good enough. It’s just not what we’re used to. So I said this last year, I think it’s time for the Lakers and LeBron to kind of part ways and move forward.”
LeBron arrived in LA in 2018, less than two years after Kobe retired after 20 years with the franchise. He immediately became the face of the team that had endured five consecutive losing seasons before his arrival.
His greatest achievement came in 2020 when LeBron and Anthony Davis led the Lakers to the NBA championship. LeBron won the Finals MVP as the Lakers acquired their 17th title.
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But that championship was the only championship of the LeBron era. That appears to be the major issue for Scott. The Lakers have historically been measured against pretty great standards when it comes to players such as Kobe, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and others.
LeBron winning just one title was pretty big, but Scott thinks it was not enough to receive the same level of admiration from Lakers fans that Kobe enjoyed.
Scott’s comments are also pretty consistent with his past criticism of LeBron’s Lakers tenure. The three-time champion has said that winning only one title in Los Angeles hurt LeBron’s overall legacy, and even said that he would need one more title before deserving a statue outside Crypto.com Arena.
Scott has also questioned LeBron’s standing as a true Laker, as he has repeatedly suggested the franchise needed to move on from him to build its next championship team. Scott has even compared LeBron with Kobe when discussing their personalities and how they approach their competition. His position has consistently shown the standards that are created by the Lakers’ most successful eras rather than just simply evaluating LeBron’s production.
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Eventually, Scott got the separation that he had been wanting.
LeBron left the Lakers to join the Philadelphia 76ers this offseason, which ended an eight-year Lakers tenure, and that allowed the organization to completely turn the franchise over to Luka Doncic.
LeBron’s Lakers legacy will always be complicated no matter what. He restored championship basketball to Los Angeles, won a Finals MVP, and delivered a title during one of the most emotional years in the franchise’s history during Kobe Bryant’s death.
But Scott’s argument seems to explain why LeBron was never fully accepted by the fan base in Los Angeles.
Greatness has generally been measured in championships, and for some Lakers fans, one title might have never been enough.
