It's looking like LeBron James in the NBA playoffs isn't the forgone conclusion we've come to presume. On Monday, the Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Clippers, 113-105, slumping to a ho-hum 30-34 record, six games adrift of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference with 18 games left in the regular season. Not only will James almost certainly fail to extend his preposterous streak of eight consecutive NBA finals appearances, it's looking more and more likely that he'll miss the playoffs altogether for the first time since the 2004-05 season, when he was a 20-year-old in his second year.