LeBron James promised not to miss the playoffs again and kept his word

While sitting at home and tweeting from the couch like the rest of us last postseason, LeBron James made a vow to not miss the playoffs again. It was the second time in four years the team had missed the playoffs, and injuries had derailed both of those campaigns.

It was a natural reaction and a feeling that many Lakers fans were experiencing at that time. The difference between our frustration and LeBron’s is that he can actually do something about it and we can not.

On Tuesday, he did, officially, do something about it.

The Lakers returned to the playoffs with their overtime victory over the Timberwolves in the play-in game. It wasn’t pretty, but the mission was accomplished all the same.

LeBron would have been well served to brag a bit and bring that tweet back up in the aftermath. For someone who is extremely online at times, why didn’t LeBron do some bragging?

Well.....his belief in his vow may have wavered.

Back sometime around the holidays, LeBron actually deleted the tweet. It’s unclear exactly when, but it happened in the aftermath of the team being routed by Dallas on Christmas Day.

That loss was the fourth consecutive defeat and dropped the team to 13-20. After looking have gotten back on track following their 2-10 start by going 11-6, all that good work was undone and things looked grim.

At the time, Anthony Davis had just gone down with an injury that had a very undefined return timeline. The Lakers had a very flawed roster and everything felt pretty bleak.

Truly, it wasn’t until the trade deadline that hope was restored and the team felt like one that could go on a run. Unfortunately for LeBron, though, there is no undoing a deleting of a tweet.

But we’ll afford LeBron some wiggle room to brag. He played as big a role as anyone in getting the Lakers back to the postseason.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.