Is LeBron James Getting BETTER? (Ft. Lakers NBA Season, A Lot of Seasons, & Defense) by @MJ2KALLDAY - Post Details
Is LeBron James Getting BETTER? (Ft. Lakers NBA Season, A Lot of Seasons, & Defense)
LeBron James and the Lakers have been amazing this NBA season, but is LeBron getting better? Check out Raycons Black Friday Deals!: https://buyraycon.com/mj2kallday #NBA #LeBron #Lakers Second Channel- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZWAssCaz6YHMXGziCKtdPw The OUTRO song is OUT!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SUYj3SUdUw Instagram- @MJ2K_ALLDAY Twitter- @mj2kallday Man has LeBron come back for the throne. He’s averaging a career high in assists, but he’s also doing something we haven’t seen for over 5 years. I’m not trying to compare LeBron to just last year, I’m talking about his time on the Cavs too, so I wanted to really see if he’s somehow getting better and why he’s looked so good right now. Usually I would start with what the player has done in the past and then see what they are doing right now to compare, but because LeBron’s body of work is so long, let’s take a look at what he’s doing this season and compare that to his best ever. This is LeBron’s defensive win shares for his career. This is his win shares this season if he keeps this pace. LeBron is on pace to have 5.79 defensive win shares this season. He hasn’t had that high of defensive win shares in a season since the 2008-2009 season when LeBron was 24 and on Cavs for the first time. What? That’s higher than his Miami Heat days when LeBron was 2nd in defensive player of the year voting. Yeah, LeBron is doing something he hasn’t done since Curry got drafted into the league. Stats are one thing, but watching LeBron is another. LeBron is really putting that effort on that side. Yeah, chasedown blocks are nice, but I’m more interested in how LeBron is getting into a defensive stance and move his feet. Look at this defense from one pass away. LeBron is loaded, low, and moving his feet to cover both passing options, he eventually gets the steal. Last year this was the opposite. Even years in the past, LeBron has high IQ so he would get steals, but this is physical effort mixed in with IQ. That’s what made him so special in Miami because LeBron used his physical prowess on the defensive end and now he’s doing that again. LeBron’s absolutely right. LeBron is also averaging a career low in minutes per game at 34.9 minutes which doesn’t mean a whole lot by itself, but actually means everything when put into context. LeBron James has been a leader in minutes per game for years. For 2016-2018, LeBron was ranked 1st in minutes per game. Last season he was 7th. And he was visibly tired some nights. This year, he’s ranked 11th. We saw this in the 2015-2016 season when he was ranked 14th. Also, LeBron has been averaging the most minutes in the playoffs for years as well. So the fact that he wasn’t in the playoffs helped LeBron rest, but more importantly than that is the fact that LeBron is playing less minutes this season. The easiest to see is that LeBron is averaging a career high in assists. His previous high for a season was 9.1 assists and now he’s averaging 11.1. It’s not just because his teammates are just making more shots. LeBron has 19.9 potential assists which is a career high too. His previous high was 16 potential assists and even on the Miami Heat, he was averaging 13 potential assists. There’s also the fact that pace has gone up. Still, he’s also averaging is lowest turnovers since 2013. But, LeBron is averaging his second lowest points per game at 25. He’s had two seasons where he averaged 25.3 points but only in his rookie season did he average less than thaIn fact, this is his 7th worst field goal percentage in a season in his career. But honestly, his offense is comparable to his past self. His number drives are comparable to his previous years, but if you look at the drives themselves, LeBron is bullying opponents. LeBron’s offense is more like 2014-15 where he’s just shrugging them off more and more. There is more of a dominance factor to LeBron. I know twitter was roasting +/- so let’s forget about that and look at on and off the court stats of this season compared to LeBron’s previous seasons per 100 possessions. And oh look at that, LeBron’s almost at a career high +17.4. LeBron was only a +1.9 on/off, oh yeah, he was one of the worst defenders in the league that year. It makes sense that the 2009 Cavs was his career high. I think LeBron could do this every year he’s healthy which has been every year but one, but he’s rested and he’s playing less so he can do more in the time he’s playing. I’m excited to see what LeBron does in the playoffs, so far, this season is really giving me 2014-2015 Cavs LeBron vibes from the eye test and the stats show it. But what do you think? Will LeBron win MVP? Will he keep this level up?
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We Just Witnessed The End Of Curry And The Warriors As We Know It
Steph Curry has reached his breaking point. It’s 2019 NBA Finals. The Warriors just lost Kevin Durant for a second time due to an achilles tear. Klay Thompson already missed game 3, leaving Curry facing a box and one. And in Game 6, when Klay Thompson goes for dunk and lands on the floor in pain, the camera pans to Curry who is sitting on the floor in disbelief And now in 2024, we saw Curry have a similar reaction, with tears on his face, not because of Draymond getting ejected 4 minutes into the game, but because of what it means. This season for the Warriors has been a disaster. And it’s finally breaking Steph Curry, but why now? Why is Curry just done with the Warriors? The Warriors made the best of the situation getting D’Angelo Russell who they would later flip for Andrew Wiggins, but man 2019-2021 were rough. 2019 because Curry and Klay were both hurt, and they went 15 and 50 but in 2020, Curry went through it for several reasons. Now if you think Stephen Curry doesn’t care, think again. He cares about what people start saying, remember Kendrick Perkins, he cares about his legacy, something we’re about to get to in 2022 but Curry who was already an NBA champion was getting disrespected and he answered by leading the league in scoring. Yes, Steph Curry without another all star carried the Warriors to an 8th seed. The hope was that once Klay Thompson would come back, maybe the Warriors could be good again. But management didn’t. They just didn’t believe that the team could get it done and wanted the team to focus on younger players. In fact the Warriors going into the 2021-22 season were 9th in power rankings by bleacher report, 13th in LA times. But Klay would come back and while he wasn’t the same old Klay, he had his moments and was good enough that Curry’s faith was rewarded. Wiggins revamped himself, players finally understood how to play with Curry, how to spot him wide open. And perhaps the most important, Steph Curry finally won his finals MVP. You can see how much it meant to him, crying on the court. And afterwards, he was talking the talk, especially to all the doubters. Well duh, when you go from kicking your opponents to punching your own teammates, that tends to happen. So another year lost in the championship window. Where most players would have lost out on hope before the first championship, and even after last season, Curry had a lot of faith in himself and his closest teammates could get it done but that doesn’t seem likely because of piece #2 the Warriors are potentially calling it quits after this season and that’s coming from the Warriors owner. It’s no secret that Klay and Draymond Green’s contracts are ending soon. Klay is up this year, Draymond next. But the Warriors paid over $150 million in taxes last year to keep this exact roster in taxt. That’s right, the new luxury tax rules made the Warriors a luxury tax repeater making them pay higher rates for going over the salary cap since they re signed their core to massive contracts. And Joe Lacob, the owner, is sick of it. He’s stated that he wants to completely be out of the luxury tax. And that’s the thing. It’s not injuries that is holding this team back right now. It’s the players and management themselves. And yes while Curry proved all the haters wrong winning a finals MVP, he has a chance to do something special, something that would cement his legacy, and that’s Piece #3, a 5th championship can put Steph Curry as the best point guard of all time. At the current moment, there is the conversation of who’s the best point guard of all time: Magic or Steph. Even Steph was asked about it he said, Now the main argument holding Steph back is that Magic has one more championship. But if that was equalized, would that mean Steph would be the best point guard? Steph, like Jordan, takes a lot of things personally. And take the words of his teammates, And apparently Jordan said that Magic is the best point guard of all time. This 5th championship puts Curry firmly in the top 10 of all time, because he’s already done the rest. He has one of the biggest impacts on the game, he’s a multiple time MVP winner, and broke countless records. The reason why we are entertaining this debate is because Steph has the full resume, he has that aura.