LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

It was just a great game from a guy who is on another level. Tons of insane passes.

 

The guy just has an elite basketball IQ and has displayed that consistently for over two decades.

 

I don't think we have to reassign him to the GLeague for now if he keeps playing like this.

 

lebron found chemistry with ayton before luka did. incredible

 

Kwame "skillet hands" Brown

 

This is what I came here to say.
We didn’t see any of the low percentage side step threes or Barkley-esque slow post ups.
He played intelligently on the court by letting AR and Luka handle the scoring while breaking down the defense with his passing.
Pass first LeBron is exactly what this team needs.

 

Be careful, you guys are making way too much sense...lol.

 

Eh.

LeBron has always been willing to give up the ball and was even criticized repeatedly throughout his career for doing so particularly in some clutch moments. We’ve seen him distribute the ball in multiple settings including just last year with Luka.

His entire role in the Westbrook fiasco was fueled in part by him wanting to handle the ball less.

Not trying to keep this one going as there are things you can critique him on. But I’m good with him dominating the ball when the alternatives are DLO, Gabe, etc. Even Austin was growing into his role for a good period of that.

But hey. Everyone is free to have their opinions. Bottom line for me is that when LeBron is given someone who won’t piss their pants when the bright lights hit I have seen him more than willingly give them the ball including numerous times when I thought he should’ve taken it.

Hes got Luka, AR, Ayton, etc.

He’s going to give them the ball. Happily.

 

Preach. It’s been out of control around here, ignoring exactly what you have said. Sure NO ONE likes the ball pounding (Luka included) but that was a small part of his game and at times due to no one else consistently putting up points, and he has always been way more Magic than ISO Jordan or Kobe. The notion he was going to come back with THIS roster now and eff it up because of selfish ego was nuts.

 

That is not true. There were many times he did not get the ball to AD when he should have and instead pounded the ball and took long, late clock, low percentage shots. Almost everyone here was posting about that or he would give AD the ball in a bad spot with a few seconds left, now it seems to be forgotten. With Luka and AR I don't see that happening as Luka will have ball most of the time. Hopefully what happened last night continues on, if so I like our chances.

 

Although, at this point, I am beginning to wonder if there were not internal discussions suggesting that AD could not take the pounding he would have been forced to take had Lebron been forcing the ball into and through him as often as it seemed he should have??

 

That is certainly possible. It just seemed odd that AD would be fighting so hard for position if he knew he wasn't going to get the ball. I'm just speculating bc I don't know anything. The last thing I want is to stir things back up after such a emotional win with LeBron's return and him playing his role so perfectly. A I stated before, I am expecting to see fun basketball and a championship.

 

I never fully subscribed to this one. Teams clogged the paint pretty often with AD due to our frequent issues with spacing and shooting.

Beyond that, I definitely remain a huge AD fan but he's a 2 to me on offense. I think he was given ample opportunity to fully take the reigns and be the complete alpha of the team and just couldn't get there. Injuries played a role for sure, but I don't think he was quite that guy.

Great player and a great Laker. Not intended to be a shot at him. We won a title with him and I do believe we could have won another with the right guys around him.

But I don't think there was the faith in him that you can have with Luka. You toss that ball to Luka and you're surprised something great doesn't happen. I never felt that with AD despite how good he is. AD is extremely good. Luka is generational.

I think LeBron truly liked AD but just wasn't a believer when the chips were down. It's pretty clear to me the front office weren't either or we wouldn't have seen that hesitance to build the team up around him.

 

AD is definitely no Luka and I agree he was 2 on offense but I will have to disagree that he was given ample opportunity to take the reigns. Injuries kind of made it all irrelevant any way I suppose.

 

I could never understand how a big tall guy with AD's coordination and entirely fine shooting motion just lost his mid range touch. Like Ayton (so far) seems to have in spades. AD could have gotten those all game long and not have to have battled more trying to be the big tough offensive center at the rim he didn't want to be, so often. 2 points is 2 points. Things would have been a lot different for him if he hadn't.

 

It’s all good. I think differences of opinion are what make forums interesting.

 

No, we are just “haters” who are just making all that we saw up. None of it ever happened because he came back and started passing first.

 

But you ignore ALL the good play and correct plays and passes whenever guys would get open too, to overly fixate on one smaller aspect of bad in his game, from time to time, sometimes out of necessity, like Kobe feeling he had to, often, in the grand scheme of things. Have you forgotten the "good Kobe" "bad Kobe" dichotomy around here as well game to game? "Ballhog Bryant" on local radio show?

 

Yes, convenient amnesia is running rampant...lol. I'm not sure why it is so hard to acknowledge, yes this happened then, hopefully it won't happen now. Last night went great and hopefully it continues.