LeBron James went west, and the NBA ratings have gone south.

More than halfway through the regular season, NBA ratings have fallen. The real plummet has been on Turner, which started with a LeBron-less opening night and has been playing from behind ever since.

The network is down 22 percent compared to this point last year.

ESPN is also off, but just 5 percent. ABC was up 5 percent on Christmas Day in a slate that was headlined in prime time by James’ Lakers against the Warriors. ABC tips off its weekly Saturday night coverage this weekend, which will offer a truer gauge.

As for Turner, its ratings started off very poorly without James at all on opening night, which contributed to a 42 percent (4.9M to 2.8M viewers) drop from a year ago, when it began with James against his just-traded former teammate, Kyrie Irving, plus other intriguing matchups.

Since the final whistle of its first game this year, Turner has been scrambling to come back, like an NBA team trying to reduce a big first-quarter deficit. It has made some strides and may make more, but it is hard to see Turner matching its excellent 2017-18 numbers.

At this point last season, Turner averaged nearly 2 million viewers per game, while this year it is at 1.5 million.

The impact of James going to the Lakers is likely the main culprit. James moved from a small market, not nationally popular team, the Cavaliers, to the Lakers, the marquee franchise in the league.

Meanwhile, on most nights, he moved from the early lead-in window to the late slot. The Cavaliers have returned to being a low-ratings team, while the emerging teams in the East are in Canada with the Raptors and a small market with the Bucks. At this point last year on Turner, James had four games, all beginning at 8 p.m., while this year he has had three and only one was early.

The NBA feels it is on the upswing as Turner/ESPN/ABC were up 3 percent in December compared to November.

Maybe this will be a trend, but so far — like the teams he plays on — the viewing might be a little too overdependent on James.

Put it in the books: The Mets and WCBS have made it official: Howie Rose will be joined by Wayne Randazzo in booth for games in 2019. Randazzo replaces Josh Lewin. Lewin is working the pre- and postgame for the station that has the San Diego Padres’ games. Ed Coleman will do the Mets’ pregame, while Randazzo will be on the postgame. WCBS sports anchor Brad Heller will back up Coleman on the pregame. The Post reported earlier this month that Randazzo will be working on a one-year deal, as the Mets and CBS want to hear how he sounds full time with Rose.

Quick Clicks: ESPN hired baseball insider Jeff Passan to be its Adrian Wojnarowski of baseball. The network is giving him the platform, as he has been all over TV, appearing on Scott Van Pelt and all the “SportsCenters,” “Get Up!,” “Golic & Wingo” and local shows like Michael Kay here in New York. Kay introduced Passan with, “One of the biggest signings of the last couple of months was ESPN’s signing of Jeff Passan.”

ESPN is going to have to get everyone on the same page, though, because Passan reported that the Chicago White Sox were at eight years for Manny Machado. A few days later, Buster Olney said the White Sox were at seven years and $175 million. Machado’s agent, Dan Lozano, subsequently released a statement ripping into Olney and his report. Reporting on baseball free agency is more complicated than reporting on NFL or NBA free agency due to the higher number of variables (i.e., no salary cap, no fixed max-contract structure, etc.). But it is an outlet’s job to make it as effortless as possible for it to be understood by viewers/readers. ESPN has a lot of reporters, and it is sometimes hard to get them all corralled with the same information. That said, the job is to make it is as easy to digest. So, according to ESPN, what are the White Sox offering?

Speaking of Van Pelt, his “One Big Thing” about his father, who passed away 31 years ago, was really well done. You could tell he wrestled with using his big forum for something so personal and not entirely to do with sports. But the reason it cut through is because it was authentic and relatable. It was nice.

ESPN is now in the MMA business, which led to Stephen A. Smith having one of its reporters, Brett Okamoto, on his radio show Wednesday. MMA is lacking a headline fighter at the moment. ESPN has a chance to demonstrate its power if it can hype a new wave of MMA stars. It will surely try.