LeBron James knows what championship basketball is, and on Monday night, the Lakers were not playing championship basketball.

On Monday night the Lakers lost at home to the Thunder, 119–110, in a hard-fought game that was close through the final minute. James finished with 22 points, 10 assists and six rebounds, but his effort wasn’t enough to get Los Angeles over the hump.

After the game, a reporter asked James about where the Lakers’ current level of play was at relative to the Thunder. The two-decade veteran of the league didn’t mince words.

“You want me to compare us to them?” James said with a laugh. “That’s a championship team right there [and] we’re not. We can’t sustain energy and effort for 48 minutes and they can. That’s why they won a championship.”

Lebron on the Thunder:

“You want me to compare us to them? That’s a championship team right there we’re not. We can’t sustain energy and effort for 48 minutes and they can. That’s why they won a championship” 👀 pic.twitter.com/j59NF4uAcS

— Oh No He Didn’t (@ohnohedidnt24) February 10, 2026

The loss dropped the Lakers to 32–20 on the year, good for fifth-place in a crowded Western Conference. The Thunder, meanwhile, remain atop the conference, four games clear of the Spurs, despite going just 5–5 in their last 10 games played.

 James’s assessment of what sets the Thunder apart hits the nail on the head

The Thunder are the most complete team in basketball. They can beat you in a variety of ways, with a star scorer that can take over when needed, some of the best team defense in the league, and a bench that is putting up 40 points per game. They are not just consistent, they are consistently consistent—they are the only team to be in the top five of net rating in each month of the NBA season thus far. While other teams across the league go through their highs and lows, the Thunder keep cruising.

Possibly the most frightening thing to Oklahoma City’s competition in the Western Conference is the fact that they actually have gone through a few rough patches—it’s just that a rough patch for this version of the Thunder means “lost two out of three games without its best player at the start of February,” as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been out with an abdominal strain in the lead up to this week’s All-Star Game. 

When the greatest of all-time is saying, “that is a championship level team on the floor,” and the team he is talking about is about to return the reigning MVP to the roster, you can bet they’re pretty good.

The Thunder are a machine that just keeps on humming. While with 13 losses already, Oklahoma City will not be challenging the lofty mark set by the 2016 Warriors as some had hoped for early in the season, the Thunder are going to win plenty of games this year, and barring injury, will likely enter the playoffs as favorites to repeat as champions.

Whether or not another team can stand up to them over a seven-game series remains an open question. The Lakers very well could if things broke the right way, but as LeBron noted, it’s going to take 48 minutes, every single night, to do it.

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