LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

I can attest that throughout my time here, you have skewed way more towards the positive side regarding LeEgo than the negative.
Most of have been sick of the complaining through the media since his first off season with us.
I really hope he does ask for a trade so we can get assets back for him.

 

oh noes, Lebron, don't leave us!!!! Whatever will we do without you???



If Lebron asks for a trade, it completes the last step of a retooling with a younger roster. I won't be upset about that. We may not get massive assets, but we should walk away with a couple of pieces and contract flexibility moving forward.



He's an all time great, but I won't be sad to close this chapter in Laker Lore.

 

We drafted his son so they could play together, and now he leaks this s*** to the media because he's no longer the face of the franchise moving forward? No longer the media darling that can do no wrong? At what point exactly did you want to leave?

Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. 1 championship. No jersey hanging for you, unless posthumously lol.

 

yeah, i'm not that extreme, and i see a lot of value in making sure we do right by lebron, as he saved the franchise from a likely 30-year knicks trajectory.

that doesn't mean i can't call the current situation as it is. he's lost power because he's not the player he was. it's very difficult to negotiate this kind of thing, and almost nobody has been able to get it right in a way that satisfies everyone.

i just hope he shows up with a good attitude this year instead of what his agent's comments suggest is coming. that won't help anyone, including him/his legacy.

 

They can hang his jersey up at the practice facility.
Thanks for the single Ring and all the bullsh!t we had to endure throughout it all.

 

Hey, Jeanie made a lot of money off of him selling jerseys, tickets, and then the team. We also got him to set some all time records while in our uniform. It would be nice to have him finish his run and do his final lap as a Laker in a cordial manner, but not if this is what we get to deal with. Nobody needs a 41 yr old malcontent former face of the NBA on their team taking pot shots at them about how they didn't put a good enough team around me while I pull down generational wealth in pay every year. That just falls on deaf ears.

He was never a true Laker in my eyes, and I doubt he chooses our jersey for the HOF. He will be wearing a "Lebron" jersey. Lebron is all about Lebron, and he always has been. Let him finish up his career in Cleveland for his storybook ending. The one where we sweep the CAVS in the Finals while he's on the bench in street clothes injured and Luka averages a triple double and points at him a lot after making big threes from deep.

 

i prefer to imagine a future when lebron has morphed into draymond horford, playing 25mpg for 60 regular season games, then becoming our second best player in the playoffs en route to his second title with us.

 

I'm not saying you don't like Lebron, it was more of a turn of phrase, even if you don't like him etc etc.

D-Lebron is only one stat. The eye test doesn't have Luka as a good defender - he is average at best. Here's a couple of other stats from the playoffs:

Lebron lead the league in holding opponent FG% during the playoffs at: 36.4%
He lead the playoffs in stocks through the first round, he was 4th in blocks (2.3) and 6th in steals (2.0)
He had 3 steals and a block in the final quarter of Game 4 against the Wolves.

I'd say Lebron was close to the best player in that series due to Luka's health and conditioning issues, Lebron was having an impact on both sides of the floor.

More so, he was our defensive leader in the second half of the season after the Luka trade and we went on a tear. I'm not sold he won't play more defence this season based on that half season snippet. So let's see.

 

That's not going to be the reality, when he is done as an All Star level contributor, he'll walk.

 

You have an excellent imagination, sir

and I don’t disagree, but I don’t see the signs pointing toward that resolution

 

Is Lebron Rafter Worthy?

This guys doesn't seem to think so. Is Lebron Rafter Worthy?

He makes some good points.

 

Maybe? I’m torn because I’d lean hard not if he doesn’t finish career here …. even though he LEGIT saved the franchise from possibly the Knicks kind of decades running irrelevance and delivered a ring.

 

Yeah he’ll make the rafters. He is a top 3 player that spent 8 years here.

 

he makes it in any case because of the brand. we want his name affiliated with the organization going forward.

 

it's a stat that matches your eye-based assessment of luka. but has lebron lower than your eye-based assessment of him. that's why i encouraged people to generate their own subjective defensive evaluations and compare them to the stat and see if it makes sense. i choose that one for a reason--of all those i've looked at, it best approximates what i would have said before, which is why i pay attention to it when it tells me something counter-intuitive as well. i am VERY skeptical of the "blow-by" stat, and i actually have a lot of expertise in attempting to quantify difficult things. for reasons related to this, i much prefer data based on a full season than on a few games. you're paid for full seasons.

i hope you're right, anyway, because we'll be better than i expect if lebron returns to being a plus-defender as he was almost every year until the last couple.

 

In my opinion, defense is a very specific and complex topic to discuss when it comes to RS.
Effort and commitment are the main topics, doing something more than necessary... something we probably can't expect from a player who's almost 42 years old.


Luka isn't an excellent defender, but very often he gives me the feeling that he doesn't apply himself very well.
I'm Italian and therefore I watch a lot of European basketball. I was watching Luka's Euroleague debut in Moscow against CSKA in TV.
He's a player I know quite well: in FIBA, I've seen him put a lot of effort into defense, and I've only seen that kind of effort in a few playoff games when he was with the Mavs.

My two cents: a player's desire to give it his all on defense is greatly encouraged by the tactical context he finds himself in.
Does having Anthony Davis alongside him leading the defense help you be a better defender?
Knowing that behind you is Jaxson Hayes or LeBron James, adapted as a C?

 

1 championship. Is it enough?

 

What if he taints that brand? Anything is possible with this guy.

 

he saved the brand. even if he demands out and trashes the franchise on the way out, i'm not sure it would undo much. he's won a ring and played 8 years here.

shaq badmouthed us both while he was here and after he left, and now he's part of the laker family, despite winning a ring elsewhere and playing for like, 11 teams after us.