LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

Regardless of who becomes the next HC. I expect Lebron to come out like a beast next season, AD too. I don't know if either will make it though the campaign unscathed, but I absolutely expect those two to come out of the gate smoking.

 

I expect LeBron to come out a couple times next year and tell us all how he wants to play with stars that aren't on his team. I guarantee it actually.

 

lies

and how was his defense against these same teams?

 

The GOAT doesn't have to play defense if he doesn't want to...

 

Lebron is a neutral defender at this point. He's not gonna hurt it and he's not gonna elevate it.

Still an elite scorer but Russ gave him better looks than he's normally gotten in the past. That's 1 good thing Russ brought.

 

I know the advanced stats probably say he is a neutral defender. But I still find the advanced stats on the defensive side of the ball a bit murky.

Offensively he is still elite. But this season he couldn’t do it for four quarters when carrying the offence. He also seems to not be able to blow past everyone like he did only 2-3 seasons ago. And you can see that in his uptick of spamming the three ball. When his three is on, he is deadly.

With all that energy expanded on O, his defence really struggled. He didn’t get back on transition D and didn’t rotate well at all. But as an on ball defender he was good, had a lot of strips on centers, blew up certain plays well and in general communicated the oppositions offence really well.

In my opinion, we need to become less Lebron offence centric so he can play a little bit better D. We do that by making his scoring easier and by getting him into better positions and sets.

Lots of work for the new coaching staff if we want to win again with late career Lebron.

 

A healthy Davis would go a long way. He's the only impactful two-way player we have. Him playing takes over some of the scoring load which will hopefully allow Lebron to put energy into defense like he did the previous two seasons.

 

Lebron and Klutch are going to make the Lakers bleed aren't they.

 

I'd rather just John Wall him or give him a bench role. No way that brutal trade could go through.

 

This is from Sam Amick and I hope this is true. The end of his contract and tenure with the Lakers can't come soon enough.

https://sports.yahoo.com/lebron-james-unlikely-sign-extension-134113264.html

The ball is in the FO's court. Will they let Lebron dictate things and bleed the team of its future resources as he's on his way out? Hopefully they learned from how he left CLE


https://lakersnation.com/lakers-new...-about-signing-contract-extension/2022/04/12/

FO said no to Klutch for Wall, will they tell him no again?


By the way...

 

again, pick protections matter. if they're lotto-protected until they turn into 2nds, i'm down for including any and all picks. fully unprotected picks are for superstars only.

as always, there's a middle ground. would you have given a 1st to get wall? what's the good deal we turned down over picks? i don't see one.

and if lebron wants the team to mortgage the future, he's got another thing coming. he's nearing 40 and has missed a big chunk of his time in la, quite frankly.

also, i'm calling your one-year bluff. you stand to lose a ton of money this way. you no longer control this stuff. if you opt out, who's offering max for 50 games of non-all-nba play? i know folks think there's money in it, but did the wizards make much on mj's swan song? and he was paid min, right?

anyway, not worried about lebron's decisions at this point. we got our title. i'm encouraged to hear it's possible we aren't extending him unnecessarily.

 

keep in mind lowe's a C Bags fan, as are a lot of guys with espn. he's adding the laker hater tax to his proposals. remember when we weren't getting AD?

 

https://heavy.com/sports/los-angeles-lakers/players-texting-in-game-frank-vogel/

 

Not the GOAT though…

 

@Weezy this is one of the reasons why I’ve been talking about Russ on the team next year. Hayward and Oubre for Russ and 2 picks? That’s just highway robbery.

I also believe Russ will have a bounce back season and look like the best player out of that trade and then the media will pile on and attack the lakers for giving him away and two picks. They’ll also praise MJ for getting out of long term salary to take on an expiring.

 

Lol.

I like trolling you.

LBJ the GOAT.

He has a case for it.

I said he was about 3 months ago in this thread, but again, I wasn't serious.

I still favor MJ. Shrugs.

 

By the trade deadline all those bum teams will be begging for Russ's expiring.