Get excited for the LeBron James era with the Lakers with this hype video

LeBron James has agreed to play for the Los Angeles Lakers next season. That sentence is almost unbelievable to write, especially after watching the last several years full of (mostly) bad and listless basketball until last year’s group of fun overachievers.

Still, plucky overachievers don’t normally lure superstars, and the Lakers normally aren’t considered plucky. For nearly as long as the franchise has existed, it’s been the big, bad villain looming over the rest of the NBA, coming to cities across the country to crush their teams have fun while doing it.

Beginning with George Mikan and most recently passing down to Kobe Bryant, LeBron is now the latest in a long line of superstars to try and take on that tradition.

To commemorate the weightiness of this moment, Chris Manning, the Godfather of Lakers hype videos, dropped another trailer mash-up to get fans pumped up for the Lakers’ next iconic superstar:

The LeBron James as Thanos allegory is apt, especially given that LeBron will essentially have to get to that level if he wants to have any shot of dethroning the Golden State Warriors (or the Houston Rockets, for that matter). For the first time in at least a decade, LeBron’s team won’t be the favorite to make the NBA Finals this June.

But those are concerns for another day. For now, it’s just time to get excited for what appears like it will be by far the best Lakers season in a long time. Much like an actual movie trailer (which can make basically any movie look good) we’ll have to wait and watch the Lakers when they debut to see if they can live up to the hype, but with James on board, this should be a fun popcorn event regardless.

You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.