"How does LeBron have 354M more views than AD?" - Fans debate NBA’s next poster boy after LeBron James aces most-viewed players list

The Los Angeles Lakers continue to draw more attention than the average NBA team. That's despite not being a championship contender and struggling to find consistency for most of the season.

Notably, with NBA ratings down, some fans took offense at the fact that LeBron James is still the most-viewed player in the league after 22 years:

"How does LeBron have 354M more views than his teammate, Anthony Davis?" a fan asked.

Several feel that this is one of the reasons why people might lose interest in watching NBA games.

"LeBron forces attention with mid season “breaks”, he gets posted 3x as much the next guy, and his name is tied to Diddy. But yall go ahead and flex that he’s the face of a dying league," a fan tweeted.

"I love Bron but this is why the nba is in trouble. You can’t have a 40 year old still be carrying the league from a marketing standpoint. None of the other superstars are marketable," another fan added.

Other fans' reactions are as follows:

"Dang people are obsessed with LeBron," a fan said.

"Lebron makes rare appearances now so it makes sense," another fan said.

"Maybe because these are the only teams that are national televised every game?" another fan said.

LeBron James addresses the Lakers' recent surge

The Lakers have won two consecutive games with James back on the court. When asked about the catalyst behind this newly found energy, he talked about the team's defensive efforts:

“We understand that in order for us to compete in every game and win games, we can’t rely on offense all the time,” James said on Dec. 21. “We have to buckle down on defense. I don’t know when that was, maybe six or seven games ago or whatever, when our defense was not so good, I think it was that road trip where we went to Miami. But from that moment, we just started really sharpening our defense.”

James doubled down on that take, stating that the offense should be just fine if they find a way to get stops consistently:

“I think our offense is gonna come, we understand that,” James added. “But you can win games in this league when you’re defending at a high level, and we’ve been doing that over these last couple of weeks.”

The Lakers are still trying to find their best form, and while banking their hopes on a 40-year-old might not be wise, they don't seem to have another option right now.