In the final week of the 2021-22 NBA season, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers find themselves on the brink of elimination.
The Lakers stand at 31-47 with just four games remaining, trailing the San Antonio Spurs (33-45) by two games for the final spot in the Play-In Tournament.
Because the Spurs hold the tiebreaker – the two teams split the season series, but San Antonio takes the secondary tiebreaker with a better conference record – the Lakers will be officially eliminated with one more loss and one more Spurs win.
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On Tuesday, April 5, the Spurs take on the Denver Nuggets while the Lakers will face off against the team with the best record in the league, the Phoenix Suns.
How many times has LeBron James missed the playoffs?
If Los Angeles were to be eliminated, it would be just the fourth time in LeBron's career that he missed the playoffs.
How did the other three playoff-less seasons unfold?
2003-04: Cleveland Cavaliers
To give you an idea of the type of team LeBron was working with as a rookie, the Cavaliers went 17-65 the year before drafting James.
At 19 years old, James nearly carried Cleveland to the playoffs, averaging 20.9 points, 5.9 assists, 5.5 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game on his way to winning Rookie of the Year.
The Cavaliers finished the season with a 35-47 record, coming up one game shy of the Boston Celtics for the No. 8 seed. LeBron led Cleveland to three-straight victories to end the year while the Celtics rode a five-game losing streak into the final game, but Boston pulled off a win to keep James and the Cavaliers out of the postseason.
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2004-05: Cleveland Cavaliers
James would go on to miss the playoffs in each of his first two seasons, both in heartbreaking fashion.
After coming up one game shy of the postseason as a rookie, James and the Cavaliers were held out of the playoffs the following year by way of a tiebreaker with the New Jersey Nets.
The Cavaliers and Nets entered the final day of the regular season with the same record at 41-40. Because the Nets owned the tiebreaker (beating the Cavaliers 3-1 in the season series), Cleveland needed a win over the Toronto Raptors and a Nets loss to the Celtics.
LeBron did everything in his power to get the Cavaliers to the playoffs. He played all 48 minutes of the final game, recording a triple-double of 27 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists in a win over the Raptors, but Vince Carter dropped 37 points in a win over the Celtics to sneak the Nets into the No. 8 seed.
From that point on, James qualified for the postseason for 13 seasons in a row and never lost in the first round during that span. He also had a legendary stretch of eight consecutive NBA Finals appearances from 2011 to 2018.
2018-19: Los Angeles Lakers
LeBron's first season in Los Angeles didn't go to plan, snapping both his 13-year playoff streak and eight-year NBA Finals streak.
The Lakers were rolling early on in the season, taking a 20-14 record into a highly anticipated Christmas Day matchup against the Golden State Warriors. Many were painting this contest to be a potential Western Conference Finals preview, with Los Angeles sitting comfortably in fourth place at the time.
James went down with a groin injury during the Christmas Day game and it ended up forcing the first lengthy absence of his career due to injury. He missed the Lakers' next 17 games, where the team went 6-11 without its star player.
By the time James returned, the Lakers were out of the playoff picture, sitting in ninth place in the West.
James played a career-low 55 games that season and the Lakers finished 37-45, missing the playoffs by a wide margin.
