The Los Angles Lakers are on to a rough start for the 2022-2023 season. Their current record is 3 wins and 10 loses, which is terrible, considering the fact that they do have the talent to win more games. Last season, they also didn’t play too well, missing the playoffs even though they acquired a superstar, Russel Westbrook. They were expected to play better this season, but shots aren’t falling.

This happens around the globe, but when a sport team is losing, someone of the team would be criticized. A YouTube video taught me a very interesting lesson: which team member’s photo was used on the post on social media to tell the followers they lost the game.

According to the video, Lebron James, the clear leader and the best star of the team, has never appeared on those loss-reporting posts. I thought this was very interesting:  the team was protecting Lebron from criticism. I also thought that there might be some marketing stuff going on: they don’t want their star player look miserable.

In my opinion, I felt like they shouldn’t treat one particular player so specially. It is true that Lebron James in valuable both on the court and off the court. However, it is not true that he has zero responsibility for the team’s misery. Statiscally, he is not playing efficiently, since he is only shooting 24% from three point range. Besides, if he gets away from his responsibility, that means that the other members would get extra criticism. Especially for Russel Westbrook, he is made the scapegoat for the team’s loses. He was criticised so much that he recently stated that he doesn’t feel he is respected. It hurts to see someone be cornered like that, and the team’s social media definitly had an influence on it. It would hurt the team’s chemistry, too. I do think the Lakers would eventually start to win the games, after the shots starts to go in, but they also need to stop treating Lebron as the absolute “king” of the team to win more.