LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

Yeah but that's a small bump in the road. The payoff is going from eeking out wins, to blowing folks out with regularity.

 

When LeBron is watching us play, the gears are turning. It isn't disinterest. He now knows what he needs to bring to make us even better. I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm but I believe we are getting ready to become the best team the league has seen in a long time. A little speed bump isn't going to stop us. I'm not even sure it is going to happen.

 

jj went away from playing a center entirely in the playoffs, and we've gone centerless for stretches this year, too.

my preference would still be to find an athletic POA defender as pioneer just mentioned, but we need old lebron closer to the hoop on both ends as often as possible, imo. we'll still play most minutes with a center, though, i imagine.

the source: um...pob relinka.

 

LeBron was the best off ball scorer in the league last season, by FG% on Cuts and eFG% on Catch & Shoot 3's. (From Reddit)

 

Nonsense! Sooner he’s gone we can really get this team cooking.



Am I doing it right?

 

yeah, i should have qualified my comments a bit--catch and shoot threes are fine by me. threes of the dribble (he was 33% there last year vs. 42% on c&s), rolled up newspaper.

btw, one reason his pullups bother me more than luka's (other than luka shooting 37% on those last year) is that it really felt like teams were baiting us into those, whereas teams actively try to prevent luka from taking them, which helps the offense in other ways.

 

The LeBron dribble for 20 seconds and then step back to the left three at every end of game or quarter situation was sooo annoying.

I get it… he couldn’t beat his man and the help anymore. But it hardly ever worked and teams were happy we took that shot. But to be fair, those pretty well disappeared when the fat boy arrived.

 

This is a really solid point, does LeBron at the four help sure up our defense more than Rui? He’s certainly a better defender and rebounder.

We’d then have two high quality screening options on the floor (Ayton and Lebron) and two high quality initiators (Reaves and Luka). If we can get those four guys playing together really well with high chemistry, I think we’ll be a dangerous team.

So I’m really excited for that and I’d then probably prefer Smart to round out our starting unit. Rui gives us shooting and cutting - but most likely his mid range game will be minimised with the starters. While smart lowers our offensive ceiling, his defense could be crucial. We’d then have three positive defenders in the starting 5 in Smart, Lebron and Ayton.

 

I'm confident we'll see less of the LeBron step back threes after holding the ball the whole possession. He does that to help preserve his legs down the stretch of a game because he only has so many blow-by's per game left in him at this point. But if he's playing more off-ball generally, I don't think it will be as much of an issue.

 

He's getting close.


Great reaction too

 

Preparing to come off of the bench. This is good.