In what is merely the latest attack on Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James, Fox Sports 1 commentator Skip Bayless stated on “Undisputed” that James’ fourth-quarter performances this season should be a cause for concern by the team.
"I have bad news: The Lakers should be very concerned. What happened against Golden State was not a rare occurrence for LeBron James, it's been a trend. LeBron has been a disaster in 4th quarters."@RealSkipBayless pic.twitter.com/DcQAUcwLv2
— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) January 21, 2021
Over the past few years, Bayless has offered up a number of different criticisms of James, though few of them have been taken seriously by those watching the game on a regular basis.
In this instance, Bayless derided James’ numbers in the fourth quarter, first focusing on the last 20 games played by the Lakers, a stretch that dates back to the NBA Finals.
Pointing out that James’ fourth-quarter numbers for both overall and 3-point shooting have dipped during that time frame, Bayless then attempted to show that the issue has become more pronounced in the Lakers’ last seven games.
While Bayless cherry-picked his numbers to make his point, he neglected to mention that the Lakers have won 11 of their 15 games this season and five of their last seven contests.
In addition, it’s likely that no one cares about James’ fourth-quarter performance in the 2020 NBA Finals. That’s because the Lakers won their first title in a decade and James was named Finals MVP for the fourth time.
Yet, the hot take offered by Bayless is something that allows his program to spark conversation and elicit some additional notoriety for him. The problem is that Bayless’ opinion is simply more of the same conversation about James that he’s pushed over the years and something that the Lakers and James will no doubt ignore.
