Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

Well if a 40 year old Lebron, is still leading your team in rebounding and assists,(never mind the 27pts) on the road in a must win playoffs game. You might have other issues that need to be addressed.

 

I don't know why you bring that up, who cares if he is 40? He is a top 3 player of all time and is still one of the top 10 or 15 players in the league who is producing at superstar levels. How many players are better than him in the world right now? We ride him till the wheels come off because once he isn't at that level anymore, he won't keep playing as a 6th man or a 4th or 5th starter.

 

He's right and wrong , wrong because Lebron gets paid like an elite player so he should produce like one but right because he's by far the best Laker defender and the 2nd best player in the series at 40 with 70 000 minutes+ played .

It's awesome and concerning at the same time ( he obviously has to choose which side off the floor to perform in the 4th at that age)

 

Yes but why do we care that he is 40? At one point he was the best defender and offensive player in the league night in night out. He peaked so high that even as he comes down, at the age of 40, he can still be elite defensively and give you 27/12/8/3/3 in a playoff game. He gets paid the max, and there is really less than two handful of players clearly performing better than him right now or at a similar level (Jokic, Giannis, SGA, Luka, Tatum, Ant) and we have one of them on the team.

Lebron is one of the best 2nd options of all time, we need to built around him and Luka for the next year or two and really try to win a championship or two.

 

because it means you have a speed and athleticism pb in your roster which are quite important in today's NBA

 

this can be addressed. lebron being an important player for us isn't a problem in and of itself, imo. svtzr said it, he's paid max and has performed like it in the playoffs (regular season spottier). we have a better top two than basically everyone. we just need to figure out the best combination around them in the short-term. that's a good problem to have, relative to like, 90% of the league...maybe any team that doesn't come out victorious this year.

now, when lebron finally does drop way off, we're going to have a hard time cobbling together a contender, but i feel like dallas did it with luka and not much else, tbh.

 

I hope you're right because all I see is for 4 years is an overreaction to the 2021 series loss against the Suns from Pelinka and going full offensive minded over defense since then .

DFS for DAR being the exception

 

Because the Lebron story is amazing, shocking, troubling and inspiring, all at the same time.

3 guys giving us hell right now...Ant, McDaniels and Reid...were 2, 3, and 4 years old, in Lebron's rookie year! That s*** is mind boggling.

 

I don’t get why it’s troubling. Lebron is an outlier at this point. We aren’t relying on a hobbled Vince Carter at 40 who is playing 12 mins a game and averaging 5 points and 3 assists. Lebron is still giving you 24/8/8. There’s almost no one in the league averaging that.

The only issue with LeBron is, you can’t build around him for the future because he is one injury or a loss of motivation away from retiring. While he is here and performing at this level, I don’t know why we wouldn’t treat him as a top 10 player with a max contract.

 

I don’t like complaining about the refs(very often), but Randle getting the Superstar Whistle(including not getting called for many charges) was so blatantly obvious in this series.