LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

I hate to harp on this but Schroeder not being around is making Lebron even more valuable. Vincent doesn't seem to have much of a calming presence and is acting more like a SG on offense.

 

Less 3's, more driving. However, I don't blame him when he can't buy a call.

Looked good and just ran into the best team in the League.

 

Looked good moving in the open court and downhill. In half court the age was more evident, but even then he's still looking like our best player.

Curious to see how the minutes are monitored. If we can keep him at/under 30 and win a lot this season, that's huge.

Could also disrupt the rhythm he's gotten accustomed to for two decades.

It's criminal how he's officiated, especially when you compare his legitimate complaints to the freebies a grifter like Harden gets. Bron had 4 consecutive drives where he's hit across the arms. No whistle. Not even a huddle and a discussion. Meanwhile next play you have Gordon climbing the rim and the refs are like, we don't see anything wrong with that.

 

Lol people wonder why he exaggerates contact so much. This is a joke

 

I have no idea how anyone can watch Booker and think he wouldn't be in contention for winning the scoring title every year regardless of era. He is f***ing arrogant prick but that dude is a legit 3 level scorer with a good handle and vision on top of that. He was clearly the best player on the court that featured Steph Curry, Durant, etc. Jrue Holiday locking him in the Finals game 7 doesn't change any of this

 

he has neither elite size nor athleticism for his position, so if you can foul him, you can take him out of a game. that's why.

and getting locked up in your career's biggest game by a single defender IS a useful data point.

 

Getting locked up by a top 3 defensive PG of all time (Payton, Alvin Robertson, and Jrue) is useful in that you need to be a truly great defender to stop him and it was only one game. Booker still averaged 28 ppg in the NBA finals of all places against a great defensive team in the Bucks!

Derek Harper who you mentioned even with Riley's Knicks was never as good as Jrue. What is true is that they slowed the pace down incredibly low so that overall PPG in the playoffs was very low - this isn't the same thing as stopping a guy relative to others. Also if anything guys like Redd and Peja were probably worse athletes than Booker

On a side note those playoffs were so ugly as talent was just so bad. Between expansion and before the infusion you went from teams like the Lakers and C Bags having like four #1 overall picks on their respective teams to guys like Thorpe and John Starks being arguably the second best players on Finals team. Between pace and just an overall lack of talent low scoring basketball gets used to justify knocking on current generation players IMO

 

Booker is awesome and a pure scorer. People get blindsided by his whining and whatever rant there's against him.

On LeBron, interesting to learn he'll play 28-30 minutes a night, I like it.
But last night the difference was insane, at some point we were like +10 with him and -20 without him. That's tough to manage and the team has to do better

 

Didn't watch them but doesn't mean your not right! Alvin Robertson just seemed like a scary dude from my hazy memories of him lol. Don't think he would last long with all his legal/domestic violence stuff in the league now.

 

i think booker's great until the screws get tightened.

wholly subjective and not really material, imo. i used him as a for instance--he was a handcheck master more than a defensive specialist. i would have chosen gary payton otherwise, who would have erased booker. erased. same size, quicker, longer, dog. if he's allowed to put hands on you, it's over for a booker.

we're moving all sorts of goalposts. as i recall (too lazy to dig up previous pages) this was about ppg inflation, which is definitely also about the increase in number of possessions. also the increase in number of three point attempts (booker attempts 1-2 more per game than either of the shooters you named).

again, the point is whether booker could be transported to 25 years ago and put up 30ppg (which he still hasn't here). the answer is no. absolutely not. i don't know if michael redd or stojakovic could score 27 now, but it's only like 3 more points than they did in the before times, so i'm going to go with...probably?

and this isn't me longing for yesterday's basketball (though i do hate the three point jacking; it's boring as a fan of the game). it's me arguing that top scorers now are better based on stats that are inflated by pace of play and changes in officiating. kobe would average 40 right now if treated the same way as current stars.

 

I'm going to be curious to see how long Ham will stick to his 30 minute-ish plan for Bron. It can be great.... if we're winning. But if these first 10 go poorly and there's a better chance they'll be losses than wins, will he stay the course or will he break glass in case of emergency?

When does he let Bron call his own subs and position?

Also, maybe listen to Bron on a night where DLO and Vincent are getting their a**** handed to them.

 

lol, i was just saying similar in the other thread re: lebron's minutes. i generally agree with limiting them in last night's game. good chance we lose anyway, and we need to learn how to win regular season games without him carrying the burden.

i also sort of get why ham would be reticent to play lebron at pg in the way he suggested, but for defensive reasons. lebron may still look like a million bucks on offense, but he got dusted on d a couple times in isolation, and we can't have him out top on that end. teams will hunt it, especially with a scorer like murray out there.

malone doesn't get enough credit for creating a defensive scheme that hides jokic's slow feet and lack of verticality, on a related note. in the modern game, it's hard to play anyone at the 1-3 spots who can't move their feet in space. we get by with it at the 4 because AD is the 5, imo. if we put in a beast at 5 and move AD to 4, lebron's out there chasing ballhandlers and movement shooters...i don't love it. another reason why i wasn't as mad at ham for trying lebron at center as others were. but i generally think defense first.

 

fully agree. sounds like i'm dogging him about the defense, but it's just facts. he's old, and it shows more on that end than the other. we have to both protect him defensively (by playing more defensive guys) and limit his minutes in an attempt to avoid the soft tissue injuries he's had basically since he got here. those are almost certainly wear-and-tear related, imo. so aiming for 30mpg is the right call to me.

 

We certainly have the fire power to keep Bron's minutes down. It's just a matter of getting those guys where they need to be and finding the right minute distribution for them to maximize each guy.

Ham has it easier in the sense there's continuity, he's no longer a rookie, and that Russ is off the team; but juggling the rotations and minutes for everyone this year and keeping them engaged when they're not playing as much as they want (even Bron) is one monumental task ahead of him.

 

…. ruh roh Darvin …. next step is something like this



…. and then flashback to his early Miami days and shoulder bumping you coming off the floor.

 

completely fine with keeping lebron's minutes down. that's the right move

rest of the team just needs to step up. they can't be relying on 39 year old lebron to play 40+ minutes in order to have a chance to win

 

Malone doesn't get as much credit as that front office got the perfect complement in KCP and especially Gordon. Add in that Murray isn't going to get rolled over and that MPJ is huge and it's not that difficult to protect Jokic.

They just have a ton of size and athleticism to stop lobs, grab boards, etc. These are guys who look mediocre as pmgo to guys but absolutely shine as secondary scorers and defensive stalwarts. f***ing Gordon looks just fine switching 1 to 5 and most of the time he's bigger and quicker than who he is guarding. He would look absolute awesome next to Lebron on the Lakers