This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed human.

The Volume.

All right. Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume.

Happy Wednesday, everybody.

Hope all of you guys are having a great week so far.

I got a quick show for you guys today.

As you guys know, this is very typical for when LeBron James gets eliminated from the playoffs.

But there's a particular group of fans that seems to come out of the woodwork

and start wanting to reevaluate everything about his career. And like, here's the thing. It's obviously completely

absurd. The dude is 41 years old. I don't know how you could literally be anything other than

impressed by what just happened over the course of the last month and a half after Luca Donchich

went down with his hamstring injury. And I'd extend that to basically three months dating back to mid-February when the Lakers first started to go on their run after the All-Star break. And LeBron embraced his smaller role and helped the team have its most dominant month since the Russell Westbrook trade, basically, right? So, like, I don't know how you could feel any way other than impressed and just say positive things, but, like, that's just kind of the nature of the beast. It is what it is. But I do find the conversation fascinating. This idea, like, was LeBron's tenure in L.A. a failure? It's not even over. We'll see he's probably going to come back, and I think Lakers will have at least a second tier championship contender type of team next season if they do bring everybody back or at least, you know, the core of the team plus some mild tweaks here or there. But like, let's say this is LeBron's final game. Is LeBron's Laker tenure a failure? I want to dive into that concept a little bit. You guys

know the drill before we started. Subscribe to the Hoops'Anneuton YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. We're in the pathway to 150,000 subs. So it mean a lot to me if you guys take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. If you're already subscribed, like this video, sign up for post notifications. That helps us a lot. All right, let's talk some basketball. So to me, this question is actually a very simple answer.

Like, is the LeBron Laker tenure a failure?

I do think so.

Just not for him.

LeBron won a championship with the Lakers.

And I know there are some people that try to poo-poo on the

bubble ring, but that's obviously completely absurd. They started the season 24 and 3.

They were clearly the best team all year long. When the COVID shutdown happened,

they were at a 64-win pace. This year's Thunder team had 64 wins, and we view them as

...