Kenny Smith cut through the noise with the kind of perspective few people can honestly claim. In college, he shared a locker room with Michael Jordan at North Carolina. In the NBA, he won championships beside Hakeem Olajuwon in Houston. So when Smith hears the modern vocabulary around LeBron James and the Lakers; “my team,” “taken for granted,” “little things,” “cookies,” seats on planes, seats in arenas, he hears something different than disrespect. He hears luxury problems.
His argument is simple: if the question is whether the Lakers ignored LeBron James, the answer is no. They may not have built a perfect roster every year. They may not have won every gamble. They may not have avoided every awkward ending, every public frustration, every Klutch-era pressure point. But when LeBron pushed the franchise toward Anthony Davis, the Lakers got Anthony Davis. That trade became the backbone of the 2020 championship. Davis arrived in 2019, and the Lakers paid a massive price to make it happen.
Kenny Smith says the Lakers HAVEN’T taken LeBron for granted 👀
“In college I played with Michael Jordan. In the NBA with Hakeem. Never in their tenure did I hear the word ‘my team’ or ‘taken for granted.’ The things they worried about, were not cookies. Or seats on the plane or… pic.twitter.com/EI2qFXgqKy
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) May 15, 2026
When the franchise had a chance to land Luka Dončić, it did that too. The Lakers officially acquired Dončić from Dallas on February 2, 2025, in a blockbuster that sent Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick to the Mavericks, with Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris also going to Los Angeles. That was not a franchise standing still. That was a franchise ripping up its future in real time to keep star power flowing through Crypto.com Arena.
And then there is Bronny James. The Lakers selected LeBron’s son with the No. 55 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, making possible the first active father-son duo in NBA history. Whether one views that as romance, politics, legacy management or all of the above, it is impossible to call it indifference. Franchises do not draft your son, trade for your preferred co-star, chase another generational ball-handler and still get dismissed as if they forgot who you were.
That is Smith’s larger point. Jordan did not need the Bulls to say “thank you” every Tuesday. Hakeem did not require ceremonial proof that the Rockets understood his value. Greatness, in Smith’s telling, was measured by banners, standards and the next possession, not by perks. LeBron’s situation in Los Angeles was more complicated because LeBron himself is more than a player. He is a team-builder, a brand, a family business, a walking historical argument. But the Lakers did not treat him like just another aging star. They treated him like LeBron James.
Maybe they did not always get it right. But taken for granted? Kenny Smith’s answer lands like a gavel: no. The Lakers gave him AD. They gave him Luka. They gave him Bronny. At some point, the evidence stops sounding like neglect and starts looking like an organization that bent itself around one of the greatest players who ever lived.
