{"id":15115004,"date":"2026-05-21T18:41:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T22:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/lebron-thunder-out-talented-lakers-in-playoffs\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T19:00:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T23:00:47","slug":"lebron-thunder-out-talented-lakers-in-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/lebron-thunder-out-talented-lakers-in-playoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron: Thunder 'out-talented' Lakers in playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a> reflected on the Lakers’ second-round playoff exit, acknowledging that Los Angeles ultimately didn’t have enough talent to compete with the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n

“I have the passion and the admiration to hoist a Larry O’Brien trophy up every single year, but I also have a realization of what particular team I have been a part of in that particular year,” James said during Thursday’s episode of his podcast, “Mind the Game<\/a>,” with co-host Steve Nash.<\/p>\n

He continued, “This year, we fought and we played to the maximum ability of our team. But ultimately, if we’re being completely honest, we were out-talented.”<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Lakers got swept by the Thunder after defeating the Houston Rockets in the first round. Los Angeles faced Oklahoma City without Luka Doncic<\/a>, who didn’t play in the postseason due to a hamstring injury. The six-time All-Star averaged a league-high 33.5 points this season.<\/p>\n

“We were not outworked, they didn’t out-physical us, they didn’t outsmart us,” James said of the reigning champions. “I feel like we were just out-talented by OKC. They just possess so much more talent.”<\/p>\n

The Thunder, owners of the NBA’s best record in the regular season, reached the Western Conference finals for a second straight year as they try to capture back-to-back titles. Their series against the San Antonio Spurs is tied 1-1 ahead of Friday’s Game 3.<\/p>\n

James has yet to announce if he’ll play another season or return to the Lakers in 2026-27.<\/p>\n

Copyright © 2026 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

Source: Sports Basketball \u2013 The Score<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LeBron James reflected on the Lakers’ second-round playoff exit, acknowledging that Los Angeles ultimately didn’t have enough talent to compete with the Oklahoma City Thunder.”I have the passion and the admiration to hoist a Larry O’Brien trophy up every single\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15115006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15115004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418.jpg",640,480,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-620x465.jpg",620,465,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418.jpg",640,480,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418.jpg",640,480,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418.jpg",640,480,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418.jpg",640,480,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418.jpg",640,480,false],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-640x446.jpg",640,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418.jpg",640,480,false],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-510x480.jpg",510,480,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-160x160.jpg",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15115004-w640xh480_gettyimages-2275709418-300x300.jpg",300,300,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"Basketball<\/a>","tag_info":"Basketball","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15115004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15115005,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115004\/revisions\/15115005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15115006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15115004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15115004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15115004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}