LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

I didn't say that or mean to give that impression. I was just saying when a non hulk genetically gifted player excels at the highest level (Think Bird), it's less expected of him vs a Karl Malone body. A Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt was expected to do big things. Lebron was expected to do big things. You don't look at a 19 year old Giannis and think dude will be MVP. Sorry I was unclear.

I definitely think Lebron has put in the work and has the best technology available at his disposal. He has always taken adequate time off when injured to heal to help with his longevity. To his detriment, Kobe played through everything and would have even tried with a torn Achilles.

Lebron had big time gifts, worked hard to hone then, took care of his body, and will reap the benefits of being the all time leading scorer in the history of the NBA. It will be an impressive feat, and that's why he's my favorite player.

 

I sure as hell will, just like i miss Kobe, Pau, Shaq, Odom, Ron, you know... players that were actually good

 

damn right we'll miss lebron when he's gone

it'll go from "playoffs just might be a possibility" to looking like the mid 2010s again when he's gone

 

Not only bad but scary decades bad if we don't ever again have the high picks luck where you're getting a potential all star at least, forget about the luck and how bad you have to be to come up with a future "superstar" in the draft .... magnified by the situation of no existing stars wanting to opt out of more money where they are to come HERE and rescue a BAD team. Sure, blow it all up pre-maturely because we don't like or don't care much for LeBron the person and because AD tends to be injury prone, though many of those are the same as everyone else in the league gets .... of the s*** happens variety.

 

oh, he can command it; we'll oblige. my issue is that he then continued to whine publicly about how things are run. i just don't think that's ok. he gets away with it because of his stature, but he shouldn't.

and yes, we'll miss him when he's gone (AD, too--we'll kill to trade for an injury-prone guy with his ability and production). but to tie that in as LT did above--let's not compound it by making sure that after he's gone there will be literally no path to recovery.

 

I agree, especially since he's the one that was all onboard with gutting the roster for Russ. If there are no good moves available to bring in help, he can't expect management to just force a trade with the remaining pics when they have zero leverage negotiating.

 

s*** happens seems to happen alot to AD

 

I would not put him in the category of Kobe or Magic for me, but I feel you. Lifetime Lakers icons deserve their own category in my book. As great as leBron is, most of his career will have been spent elsewhere, so it's just a hard comparison.

 

id retire his # but no statue lol

 

There is something beautiful about watching the sport of basketball being played the right way. I actually enjoyed watching the Clippers for a short season of life when Larry Brown was the coach. They barely sneaked into the playoffs, and may have been lacking overall talent, but they competed hard and played as a team. It was fun to watch and root for them. Then Sterling refused to pay fair rates for a top level coach and it was all over.

When you have 3 HOF'ers or talent heavy teams, and you are winning, you can overlook the ugly basketball moments. When you are not winning so much, those moments really stand out.

I think a lot of us still liked watching our home grown talent grow and struggle in spite of not winning a lot because of the circumstances. They were "Our guys". Our draft picks. We were raising them up from babies like we were blessed with the Kobe situation. We had hope of them putting it together. We had Randle bowling over people and we laughed. We focused on Ball's great passing moments vs his crooked shot. We laughed at how skinny BI was and his Slenderman posters. In the end, they couldn't put it all together and win, so it was blown up in favor of proven veterans with HOF talent. But I still tuned in.

So while winning absolutely matters, who is playing for you does too. The emotional attachment matters when you are rooting for your team. When half of the roster is new every year, and with guys you absolutely would not draft due to red flag character issues, AND you aren't winning, it's just more difficult to embrace them. Fans want to embrace their team fully.

We were so blessed to have a nice combination of quality people, fairly consistent rosters, legendary winners, and people easy to root for. Lakers fans have been very blessed, and spoiled.

But to your point about how people can forget how bad it can be..... to have a crap roster full of crap people with crap results with no end in site, that is absolute purgatory for fans. That's when fans leave and don't spend their money until the product improves for sure.

 

Yeah, pretty sure he'll end up in the category of having his number retired at all of his stops. Wouldn't surprise me if they retired it across the league at some point, but then he also did the 2 jersey number thing, and others already have that number retired. But he is setting standards that may never be matched again. Very rarely can you say that genetic superiority was matched with work ethic and longevity to get these kind of results. He's doing things at 38 that most players can never achieve in one night at any time in their career.

Sure it can feel like empty stats when we lose, but even great players on crap teams can't put up these numbers as the #1 option. It's pretty wild.

 

why we picking on Bron?

Leave this man alone. If it wasn't for him, we'd be an under .500 team

 

i'm not sure it was stat padding, but it was exactly the laziness i was talking about a few posts ago. that's not gabriel's responsibility. you left the other team's best shooter wide open in a tie game with less than 4 minutes left.

and now you're going to point fingers about us losing games.

 

Lebron is about Lebron, not what's best for the team

 

42/163 from 3 in the clutch since 18/19 and being a Lakers

Maybe , just maybe try something different instead of operating far from the basket like a 6'3 PG

 

westbrook does the same as does few of our other players, what i don't get is why most of ours guys run into the paint during transition defense or scrambling mode that leads directly to wide open 3s by the opponents