Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to tonight. You're at the Volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys have
Speaker 1: had a great week so far. We are live on AMP,
Speaker 1: so if you're watching on YouTube or listening on the
Speaker 1: podcast feed, do not forget that AMP is the very
Speaker 1: first place that you guys can get these shows. We
Speaker 1: are continuing our player rankings today with number eight Lebron James,
Speaker 1: the very first time I've had him outside of my
Speaker 1: top five. You guys know the drill before we get started.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss
Speaker 1: any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss an show announcements.
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Speaker 1: to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk
Speaker 1: some basketball. The theme of today's show is going to
Speaker 1: be about accepting reality, particularly the reality of age, because
Speaker 1: you know, today actually happens to be my birthday and
Speaker 1: I turned thirty two today, and the reality of that
Speaker 1: is I'm not the same person human being that I
Speaker 1: was when I was twenty five years old. A lot
Speaker 1: of positive changes, especially as it comes to life experience
Speaker 1: and just learning how to navigate the human experience, which
Speaker 1: can be super challenging with all the responsibilities both financially
Speaker 1: and socially and with your family and all these different things.
Speaker 1: But physically you're going to experience a certain amount of decline,
Speaker 1: right Like I've noticed that I can't eat the same
Speaker 1: way I did when I was younger without reaping consequences.
Speaker 1: I can't drink the same way I did when I
Speaker 1: was younger without feeling like absolute dog shit for a day,
Speaker 1: sometimes even two anymore. Even when it comes to basketball,
Speaker 1: I go up to the gym and I see the
Speaker 1: younger players dunking around between games and before games, and
Speaker 1: I'm over there, like, Okay, I'll get loose, but if
Speaker 1: I've got a dunk in me, I'm saving it for
Speaker 1: the game because I just don't have the as many
Speaker 1: reps left in me as I used to. And I'm
Speaker 1: only thirty two. Mister Lebron James, in December of this
Speaker 1: year is going to turn thirty nine years old, and
Speaker 1: that made this the toughest decision I had to make
Speaker 1: in my top ten because I was torn between Lebron
Speaker 1: and one other player, a player that you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna hear about tomorrow for this number eight spot, And
Speaker 1: to be one hundred percent clear, if both players were
Speaker 1: healthy and we were headed into a playoff series tomorrow
Speaker 1: with even rosters, I'd pick Lebron over this guy, and
Speaker 1: quite frankly, i'd pick him ahead of a couple of
Speaker 1: guys in front of him, even further up the list.
Speaker 1: But there's a reality that comes with Lebron. James's turning
Speaker 1: thirty nine this year, a lot of the reality that
Speaker 1: you saw throughout the previous four or five years as
Speaker 1: he's entered into his late thirties, and those were the
Speaker 1: main reasons that caused me to go with him at eight.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is is we don't get perfect circumstances.
Speaker 1: We don't get to fast forward and just have healthy
Speaker 1: Lebron in June. That's not how it works. You have
Speaker 1: to play an eighty two game season, you've got to
Speaker 1: make it through four playoff rounds. And the guys that
Speaker 1: I have above Lebron on this list, I just think
Speaker 1: that in the year twenty twenty three flowing into twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four are safer bets to be better basketball players
Speaker 1: within the season, but let's dive into it a quick
Speaker 1: season recap for Lebron played in fifty five games this year,
Speaker 1: dealt with multiple injuries throughout the season. I think it
Speaker 1: was a little flare up of his groin, and then
Speaker 1: he had the foot thing. The foot one in particular
Speaker 1: he played through in the playoffs, he had a different
Speaker 1: stress injury and his other foot as well. He was
Speaker 1: constantly even when he was on the court, dealing with
Speaker 1: different nagging injuries. Lebron has failed to play in at
Speaker 1: least fifty seven games in four of the last five seasons.
Speaker 1: So again, it's not just projecting forward for Lebron heading
Speaker 1: into his age thirty nine season, it's also the reality
Speaker 1: of what it's been like for the last several years.
Speaker 1: Although this past season was the first time that stretched
Speaker 1: into affecting his playoff performance, it is now at this
Speaker 1: phase a pretty safe bet that Lebron's going to miss
Speaker 1: about a third of the season and he's probably gonna
Speaker 1: have something going on physically that's going to be hindering
Speaker 1: him in some capacity. When we get to the postseason. Again,
Speaker 1: not a shot at Lebron. Lebron in his prime was
Speaker 1: arguably the most dependably available star in the league. This
Speaker 1: guy used to be a joke that he could. Bill
Speaker 1: Simmons used to joke that he could break his leg
Speaker 1: off in the middle of a game and just reattach
Speaker 1: it and start playing again. Obviously that's ridiculous, but you
Speaker 1: get the point. That's what it was like watching Lebron.
Speaker 1: You'd see a replay of him spraining his ankle and
Speaker 1: his ankle bone would like touch the floor and you'd
Speaker 1: be like, there's no way he's playing after this, But
Speaker 1: there he is after the next TV timeout back in
Speaker 1: the game. Literally never missed a playoff game for an
Speaker 1: injury over the course of his career. As matter of fact,
Speaker 1: still to this day, has not missed a playoff game,
Speaker 1: with exception of situations when his team missed the playoffs.
Speaker 1: So it's not a shot at Lebron. It's just the
Speaker 1: reality of where he's at at this phase in his career.
Speaker 1: But despite all of that, he had a very very
Speaker 1: productive season average twenty nine points per game. He was
Speaker 1: top ten in scoring, ninth in points per game this season,
Speaker 1: eight rebound, seven assists, fifty eight percent true shooting, which
Speaker 1: is very good. One of Lebron's most impressive seasons in
Speaker 1: my opinion, from the standpoint of floating the ship under
Speaker 1: less than ideal circumstances. So this is where the Lakers
Speaker 1: front office comes in. To be clear, Since the basically
Speaker 1: from the ruy Hachi Murro trade on the Lakers front
Speaker 1: office has been fantastic. We've laid that out on the show.
Speaker 1: They extended that by locking up Anthony Davis long term
Speaker 1: under what's sixty two million dollars a year or something
Speaker 1: like that through I believe the twenty twenty eight season
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly. They've done an amazing job this offseason.
Speaker 1: They're set up trade in the middle of this upcoming
Speaker 1: season to potentially upgrade where they might need to. It's
Speaker 1: been great for the Laker front office. But before that
Speaker 1: it was really rough. Especially coming into this season, the
Speaker 1: Lakers were kind of set up to fail. They brought
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook back despite the fact that it was a
Speaker 1: super clunky basketball fit and he brought some locker room
Speaker 1: issues just from the standpoint of his attitude. They didn't
Speaker 1: have any forwards on the roster. They only brought forwards
Speaker 1: they had on the roster were guys like Juantascano Anderson
Speaker 1: who were unplayable due to the lack of offensive skill,
Speaker 1: and when Yan Gabriel, who was more of like a
Speaker 1: backup center type of guy, Lebron and Anthony Davis were
Speaker 1: literally the only two forwards on the roster. They didn't
Speaker 1: have any shooting. They brought in a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: who were defensive minded, guys like Patrick Beverly and Troy Brown,
Speaker 1: junior guys that could defend at a reasonably high level,
Speaker 1: not an eliteally level, but a reasonably high level, but
Speaker 1: that were super inconsistent as jump shooters, which again, once
Speaker 1: putting lack of shooting around Lebron, James and Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: is just a ridiculous idea. And then in addition to that,
Speaker 1: they had one of the toughest schedules in the league
Speaker 1: to start the season, playing just good team after good
Speaker 1: team after good team, and so inevitably they started to
Speaker 1: and ten and their playoff odds looked miserable, and then
Speaker 1: they started to get it going a little bit, peaking
Speaker 1: with Anthony Davis dropping fifty five on the Washington Wizards.
Speaker 1: But then ad gets hurt a stress reaction in his
Speaker 1: foot that causes him to miss twenty games. So you've
Speaker 1: got that incredibly flawed roster and you've got Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: out for twenty games in the middle of the season.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of players in the NBA would have
Speaker 1: just been like, not our year, Like this isn't the
Speaker 1: year two and ten? No AD for at least a
Speaker 1: month and a half, How are we gonna do this?
Speaker 1: What's the point? But I would imagine that Rob Polinka
Speaker 1: must have had a conversation with Lebron somewhere around that point,
Speaker 1: because Lebron played some of the very best basketball of
Speaker 1: his career to float the ship during that stretch. In
Speaker 1: the twenty game stretch where Anthony Davis was out, Lebron
Speaker 1: James averaged thirty five points per game, eight rebounds, and
Speaker 1: eight assists on sixty three percent true shooting. Unbelievable scoring,
Speaker 1: in volume, playmaking, in defense. The Lakers ended up going
Speaker 1: ten to ten in that span, which again doesn't sound great,
Speaker 1: but when you factor in the roster in the no
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis piece, marching out lineups with a bunch of
Speaker 1: undersized and less than skilled players. They found a way
Speaker 1: to win just enough to wait for Anthony Davis to
Speaker 1: come back and to wait for the trade reinforcements to come.
Speaker 1: They made the play In Tournament by one game at
Speaker 1: forty three to thirty nine, and that resulted in a
Speaker 1: Western Conference Finals run. So that little stretch there in
Speaker 1: the middle of the season where Lebron played some of
Speaker 1: the best basketball of his career, and it was clearly
Speaker 1: one of the best players in the league at that
Speaker 1: stretch that saved them long enough for when Lebron got
Speaker 1: hurt for Anthony Davis to step in and save them.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of heroic floating going on from Lebron, James,
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis throughout this season. And all of this,
Speaker 1: by the way, was despite Lebron having the worst jump
Speaker 1: shooting slump he's had since twenty fifteen. He had a
Speaker 1: forty five percent effective field goal percentage on jump shots
Speaker 1: this year. Last year he was fifty one percent and
Speaker 1: fifty percent the year before that. Again, you want to
Speaker 1: be above fifty percent in effective field goal percentage on
Speaker 1: jump shots. Lebron was bad this year at forty five percent.
Speaker 1: He was especially bad on pull up jump shots. This year,
Speaker 1: he shot forty three point five percent in effective field
Speaker 1: goal percentage. On pull up jump shots he was forty
Speaker 1: eight percent and forty nine percent the last two years.
Speaker 1: Those are again high forties. That's where you're that's where
Speaker 1: Paul George lands, for instance, So high forties totally acceptable
Speaker 1: for pull up jump shooting. Low forties really bad, and
Speaker 1: that's where Lebron was this year. So after being again
Speaker 1: throughout the majority of his career, I'd say since the
Speaker 1: twenty eleven collapse, Lebron has been a pretty consistent jump shooter,
Speaker 1: right in line with most to his peers, probably slightly
Speaker 1: above average compared to his peers. But in twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: and again in this season, for whatever reason, he just
Speaker 1: went down a huge level as a jump shooter. And
Speaker 1: to be honest, a huge part of how the end
Speaker 1: of Lebron James's career will go will come down to
Speaker 1: how well he shoots the basketball. But despite the poor
Speaker 1: jump shooting, Lebron was on his way to another great
Speaker 1: Lebron season again that thirty five eight to eight stretch
Speaker 1: up until the Dallas Mavericks game where he tore the
Speaker 1: ligament in his foot. He averaged thirty eight and seven
Speaker 1: on fifty eight percent trough shooting. That is top tier production,
Speaker 1: top tier winning impact. Playing five hundred ball without Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis on that roster was nothing short of extraordinary. He
Speaker 1: was on track for another great Lebron season. He was
Speaker 1: also dominant attacking the rim. He was third in the
Speaker 1: entire NBA and restricted area makes per game at six
Speaker 1: point four per game on seventy five percent shooting. That
Speaker 1: was third in the league behind Zion and Giannis. So
Speaker 1: other than the two guys who once again, that's all
Speaker 1: they do, I mean, that's an overset implification, but that's
Speaker 1: their bread and butter, is just bulldozing to the rim,
Speaker 1: Lebron is the next best guy in the entire league
Speaker 1: at doing that specifically. But then the Dallas game happens.
Speaker 1: The MAVs get out to a huge lead, Lebron and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis start kind of slowly methodically pulverizing the MAVs
Speaker 1: in the posts. They get a little burst from Jared
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt in the first half as he kind of gets
Speaker 1: some steals and runouts that kind of set the tone
Speaker 1: that the Lakers are on track to come back and
Speaker 1: make that a game Lebron really takes over in the
Speaker 1: second half, particularly out of the post, but he does
Speaker 1: a basic jump stop move right there by the right
Speaker 1: block and he falls down and he visibly says to
Speaker 1: his teammates that he felt something pop in his foot,
Speaker 1: and he just was never the same guy after that.
Speaker 1: Missed a good chunk of time. Anthony Davis was carrying
Speaker 1: during that stretch again where eight is above Lebron on
Speaker 1: this list, and we will talk about Anthony Davis when
Speaker 1: we get to that point, but here are some numbers
Speaker 1: just to demonstrate the drop off from Lebron after the
Speaker 1: foot injury. So again, before the injury, thirty eight and
Speaker 1: seven on six point four restricted area makes per game
Speaker 1: seventy five percent shooting. After the injury, in the regular
Speaker 1: season he played eight games twenty five points, eight rebound,
Speaker 1: six assists, and then then the postseason in sixteen games
Speaker 1: twenty five points, ten rebounds, and seven assists. A clear delineation.
Speaker 1: He basically went down from being a thirty point per
Speaker 1: game guy to a twenty five point per game guy
Speaker 1: all like just before and after this torn ligament in
Speaker 1: his foot. It was still a very impressive playoff run
Speaker 1: for the record. Still couldn't make a jumpers. Forty three
Speaker 1: percent effective field goal percentage on jumpers overall, that's really
Speaker 1: really bad. Thirty four percent effective field goal percentage on
Speaker 1: pull up jumpers. That's like, yikes, bad. So the bad
Speaker 1: jump shooting continued into the postseason, but he was great
Speaker 1: in dribble creation. The Lakers scored two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: seven points on two hundred and eighty one Lebron pick
Speaker 1: and rolls, ISOs and post ups in the postseason. That's
Speaker 1: one point zero two points per possession. Remember, anything over
Speaker 1: one point per possession in half court shot creation against
Speaker 1: playoff defenses is great, especially when you look at the
Speaker 1: types of teams that they were going against. He really
Speaker 1: evolved as an off ball player. He's always had this
Speaker 1: in his game. You saw a lot more of it
Speaker 1: when he was in Miami. Briefly went through a stretch
Speaker 1: with Cleveland where he was a little more heliocentric, But
Speaker 1: this has always been in his game. But he's been
Speaker 1: relying on it a great deal since coming to the Lakers,
Speaker 1: especially this past season with all of the guard talent
Speaker 1: on the roster post deadline, when you're dealing with Austin Reeves,
Speaker 1: D'angela Russell, and Dennis Schroeder. Lebron was a big part
Speaker 1: in the seeding of control. Him and Anthony Davis both
Speaker 1: went way down in their live shot like on ball
Speaker 1: shot creation reps and devoted a lot of those to
Speaker 1: the guards and just became screeners. And Lebron didn't do
Speaker 1: what a lot of stars do when they're not involved
Speaker 1: in the offense, where he just stands around on the perimeter.
Speaker 1: He was active as a cutter, as a ball screener
Speaker 1: in particular, especially when Anthony Davis was off the floor.
Speaker 1: It was Austin Reeves, Lebron, James pick and roll, D'angela Russell,
Speaker 1: Lebron James pick and roll, Dennis Schroeder, Lebron James pick
Speaker 1: and roll. He was finding a way to be function
Speaker 1: in the offense even when he did not have the basketball.
Speaker 1: That's a large part of why I thought this particular
Speaker 1: playoff run was one of my favorites as a Lebron fan,
Speaker 1: just again, not his best, but one of my favorites
Speaker 1: rooting for him because he was so clearly not close
Speaker 1: to his normal self, but he just found a way
Speaker 1: through his basketball IQ and through sheer force of competitive
Speaker 1: will to impact winning at an extremely high level. My
Speaker 1: favorite moment of this playoff run from Lebron was Game
Speaker 1: four against Memphis, once again just having a nightmare game,
Speaker 1: can't get a jump shot to go to save his life.
Speaker 1: Clearly is just a little bit hobbled, But when it
Speaker 1: came down to it and his team needed him to
Speaker 1: make a play, Memphis was up to on the final possession,
Speaker 1: about to send the series back to Memphis tied in
Speaker 1: a situation where Memphis would have become the favorite to
Speaker 1: win the series, Lebron James just forced his way to
Speaker 1: the basket and made a ridiculous right handed scooping layup
Speaker 1: off the glass over Jaron jacks Jackson all the way
Speaker 1: fully extended to send the game to OT and then
Speaker 1: in OT he does it a couple more times, once
Speaker 1: beating Jaron Jackson himself off the dribble a second time,
Speaker 1: ripping through on Dylan Brooks and getting an and one,
Speaker 1: just forcing through sheer competitive will power a win when
Speaker 1: nothing else was going for the Lakers. That was my
Speaker 1: favorite Lebron moment in this particular playoff run, and that,
Speaker 1: to me is the encapsulation of a competitor. It's one
Speaker 1: thing when you're making it look easy because you're just
Speaker 1: better than everybody. And obviously there's a huge that's the
Speaker 1: ideal version for any basketball team because you're gonna win
Speaker 1: a lot of games more easily. But just you know,
Speaker 1: I've always you guys know here we talk about competitiveness
Speaker 1: a lot on this show. It's the difference between loving
Speaker 1: basketball and hating losing. You know, a guy who loves
Speaker 1: basketball will spend a lot of time in the gym
Speaker 1: working on his game. A guy who hates losing will
Speaker 1: get dirty on the court and fight and scratch and
Speaker 1: claw and just find a way to win games. The
Speaker 1: best players in the world are always a combination of both.
Speaker 1: They love basketball and they hate losing. And you know
Speaker 1: what Lebron's basketball decline is. It was inevitable and it's coming.
Speaker 1: But through his competitiveness and his basketball IQ, that sheer
Speaker 1: force of will, he has found a way to maintain
Speaker 1: a deeply impactful NBA playoff career even into his late thirties. Again,
Speaker 1: here's a wild stat for you about an injury riddled
Speaker 1: thirty eight year old Lebron James. In the playoffs. There
Speaker 1: were two players in the entire playoff field this year
Speaker 1: to average at least twenty four to nine and six
Speaker 1: Lebron James, Nikole Jokic. And again, like obviously, Lebron wasn't
Speaker 1: the second best player in this playoff run. He had
Speaker 1: a lot of issues, But the point is is when
Speaker 1: it comes to production, reliability, and finding a way to
Speaker 1: impact winning, Lebron is still one of the very best
Speaker 1: players in the league at it, even when the circumstances
Speaker 1: are not ideal. The playoff run was minimized in my opinion,
Speaker 1: in terms of people accepting it or really realizing it
Speaker 1: because of three things. It was a level below what
Speaker 1: we expect from Lebron James in his prime. Everything is relative, right,
Speaker 1: It's relative relative to normal Lebron. Yeah, it's bad, but
Speaker 1: relative to other NBA players, it's still really damn good.
Speaker 1: It was a level below what he did in the
Speaker 1: regular season. So it looked again when you see a
Speaker 1: guy average thirty to thirty and eight and seven or
Speaker 1: whatever during the regular season and then suddenly he's a
Speaker 1: level below that in the postseason, your first instinct is
Speaker 1: to think bad. But again, relative to other NBA players,
Speaker 1: he was still deeply impactful. And then lastly, as good
Speaker 1: as Lebron was, Anthony Davis was better than him in
Speaker 1: this playoff run, so he was the second best player
Speaker 1: on his team. That always will diminish just the amount
Speaker 1: of credit that a player receives for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: Lebron was older, Lebron was injured, he was playing a
Speaker 1: different style of basketball, but he was still outrageously good.
Speaker 1: But alas, the Lakers had three major weaknesses going into
Speaker 1: that playoff run. Weaknesses that I talked about before the
Speaker 1: playoff run, weaknesses that I've talked about all summer. You
Speaker 1: Lakers fans will remember right off the top, the three
Speaker 1: things I talked about were backcourt athleticism, the lack of
Speaker 1: a backup center, and the lack of over the top
Speaker 1: shot making, and all three of them came back to
Speaker 1: haunt them in the playoffs. The lack of backcourt athleticism
Speaker 1: that was what led to Bruce Brown just utterly destroying
Speaker 1: D'Angelo Russell, which was one of the biggest swing factors
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference finals. The lack of a backup
Speaker 1: center led to an injured Lebron playing center in most
Speaker 1: of those units, and they got destroyed the Lakers were.
Speaker 1: The Lakers experienced an eighteen point two point per one
Speaker 1: hundred possession drop off in the playoffs when Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: went to the bench because they did not have a
Speaker 1: playable backup center to keep Lebron at the four. And
Speaker 1: the last, but not least, Lebron and Anthony Davis both
Speaker 1: declining as jump shooters made it so that the Lakers
Speaker 1: were incapable of getting the boost you get from over
Speaker 1: the top jump shooting. And we've talked about these boosts
Speaker 1: in the past, rescue possessions like it's an advantage when
Speaker 1: you've got guys like Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokich who two
Speaker 1: three times a game are gonna turn a bad possession
Speaker 1: into a made shot, like they g of it like this.
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray makes an impossible step back. Jokic makes some
Speaker 1: crazy one leg fade away from the baseline. Jokic makes
Speaker 1: a crazy one leg fade away from the left wing.
Speaker 1: That's a three. That's eight. That's seven points. In a
Speaker 1: series where all four games were close, three of them
Speaker 1: involved clutch situations. The one that didn't involve clutch situations,
Speaker 1: the Lakers had a double digit second aflete, So a
Speaker 1: seven point swing on rescue possessions that can completely swing
Speaker 1: playoff series, and the Lakers got none of that because
Speaker 1: of the decline of Lebron James and Anthony Davis as
Speaker 1: jump shooters. That also hurts you in clutch situations. The
Speaker 1: Lakers won four straight clutch games to start the playoffs
Speaker 1: on the strength of their defense. The Lakers defense was
Speaker 1: outrageously good in clutch situations this year, but when it
Speaker 1: came down to it in the Western Conference Finals, Jokic
Speaker 1: and Murray just shot their faces off in the fourth
Speaker 1: quarters when the games got close, and so despite keeping
Speaker 1: every game close, it was a sweep and the Lakers
Speaker 1: didn't get a single win in the Western Conference Finals.
Speaker 1: And so, I mean, those flaws were inevitably going to
Speaker 1: come back to haunt them, and they did. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, specifically when it comes to Lebron, we have
Speaker 1: to factor that in as we're talking about this list.
Speaker 1: So the last question is why do I have Lebron
Speaker 1: James down at eight when, as you guys know, he's
Speaker 1: my favorite player, so obviously have a good amount of
Speaker 1: bias there. And the reality is this, if I could
Speaker 1: guarantee his health, like guarantee Lebron's gonna be healthy in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, and guarantee normal career average jump shooting, not
Speaker 1: like shoot the lights off, laces off the basketball, just
Speaker 1: normal Lebron jump shooting right around fifty to fifty two
Speaker 1: percent and effective field goal percentage on catch and shoots
Speaker 1: or an overall and jump shooting and right around forty
Speaker 1: eight forty nine percent and pull up jump shooting. If
Speaker 1: I could guarantee that and guarantee health, I think Lebron
Speaker 1: James would be easily my top five. I'd have him
Speaker 1: at four as a matter of fact, and I'd have
Speaker 1: him in the exact same tier as the three players
Speaker 1: above him. When Lebron is healthy and in his normal
Speaker 1: shooting rhythm, I think he's a bonafide top tier superstar.
Speaker 1: Why because he combines all of my favorite basketball trades.
Speaker 1: He's a big, rim pressuring forward who's an outstanding playmaker.
Speaker 1: He is a super versatile scorer who is consistently in
Speaker 1: the NBA's top tier for both volume and efficiency. Again
Speaker 1: ninth in scoring this year, despite having the injury at
Speaker 1: the end of the year that pulled his point per
Speaker 1: game average down, and he was second in scoring the
Speaker 1: year before that to Joel Embiid. Last year he had
Speaker 1: sixty two percent Troy shooting. Lebron averaged thirty points per
Speaker 1: game on sixty two Percentry shooting last year and then
Speaker 1: this past year twenty nine points per game on fifty
Speaker 1: eight percent your shooting. Lebron is consistently when he's healthy,
Speaker 1: one of the best, the best volume in efficiency scorers
Speaker 1: in the NBA. He can play effectively both on and
Speaker 1: off the ball. He's heliocentric, but only in spurts, which
Speaker 1: is something that I've always believed in. And then lastly,
Speaker 1: when he's engaged physically, when he needs to be at
Speaker 1: the end of games in important situations, He's got plenty
Speaker 1: of defensive versatility. That's all of the reasons why when
Speaker 1: Lebron James is at his peak, I believe in him
Speaker 1: as a bona fide top tier player even at this age.
Speaker 1: But that's not reality. And again the theme of the
Speaker 1: show is reality. The reality is is we don't know
Speaker 1: if Lebron's gonna have his jump shot back next season,
Speaker 1: and we don't know if he'll be healthy for the
Speaker 1: majority of the season. As a matter of fact, it's
Speaker 1: a pretty safe bet he's gonna miss a third of
Speaker 1: the regular season and he'll probably be playing through some
Speaker 1: sort of nagging injury when we get to April. I
Speaker 1: hope that that doesn't happen. And but like I just
Speaker 1: would be shocked if it didn't happen. I would be
Speaker 1: genuinely surprised. If Lebron was just trucking along, played seventy
Speaker 1: five games this year and was just ready to go
Speaker 1: for the postseason and top to top shape, I just
Speaker 1: would be I would be shocked, wouldn't you, guys? And
Speaker 1: so how do we not factor that in in this list? Guys?
Speaker 1: He turns thirty nine years old in December thirty nine.
Speaker 1: It was completely unprecedented for him to play at the
Speaker 1: level he played at age thirty eight. It's not going
Speaker 1: to get better from here. If it did, it would
Speaker 1: be highly unusual. As for the jump shot, as I
Speaker 1: talk about a lot on the show, lift is one
Speaker 1: of the most important elements of jump shooting. And it's
Speaker 1: not just in the vacuum of the jump shot, it's
Speaker 1: in the flow of actual basketball games. I've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of I did a workout yesterday at the Richard
Speaker 1: Jefferson Center with five of my younger college friends who
Speaker 1: are still playing playing in college, and they're all just
Speaker 1: in town for like a week before they had out
Speaker 1: of town. And every summer when these guys come back,
Speaker 1: I just do workouts with them, and they're all in
Speaker 1: incredible shape, and they're at a higher level than a
Speaker 1: lot of the players I normally play against in Tucson.
Speaker 1: And I was playing with them yesterday, and like just
Speaker 1: the fatigue element just from like like running around and
Speaker 1: playing like crazy intense physical basketball against real basketball players.
Speaker 1: There's a fatigue element, and like getting the like you
Speaker 1: go to rise up into your jump shot and the
Speaker 1: lift you're accustomed to getting just isn't there. It's not, oh,
Speaker 1: do you have enough lift to get the ball to
Speaker 1: the rims standing by yourself and a gym doing a
Speaker 1: shooting drill. It's Lebron James at age thirty nine trying
Speaker 1: to get lyft into a jump shot, playing against young
Speaker 1: kids who feel great and their bodies are all in
Speaker 1: great shape. And then look at the pace the NBA
Speaker 1: is played out. Now, look at how the floor is
Speaker 1: spread and all of the driving and kicking, the sheer
Speaker 1: amount of distance traveled in an NBA game right now
Speaker 1: is unprecedented, and Lebron at age thirty nine, is trying
Speaker 1: to keep up on a team that has a defensive identity,
Speaker 1: and so that's the thing is like, I'm more like
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty on this. Like with the injury thing,
Speaker 1: I feel relatively certain going to miss at least a
Speaker 1: third of the season, and I'd say that there's probably
Speaker 1: what like a seventy percent chance he's dealing with some
Speaker 1: sort of nagging injury come April. With the jump shot thing,
Speaker 1: it could be either one of two things is true.
Speaker 1: Either it was just a slump or this is a
Speaker 1: byproduct of his decline and he's not quite getting the
Speaker 1: lift he needs and so he's starting to leave jump
Speaker 1: shots short more often. Or he's having to use his
Speaker 1: arms more in a shot, which is always a disrupts
Speaker 1: muscle memory. So we don't know. I thought this was
Speaker 1: one of Lebron's most impressive seasons in terms of competitive
Speaker 1: force of will and doing whatever his team needed to
Speaker 1: float the ship under less than ideal circumstances, and when
Speaker 1: in healthy and when in rhythm and healthy, I think
Speaker 1: he's one of the very best players in the league.
Speaker 1: But in my opinion, those guys above him on this
Speaker 1: list are just a safer bet to be at their
Speaker 1: individual ceilings as players, and their individual ceilings as players
Speaker 1: are higher than Lebron's basement when he's playing with nagging injuries.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I have Lebron James down at
Speaker 1: eight and outside of the top five for the first
Speaker 1: time in well over a decade. One last thing before
Speaker 1: we get out of here, I had some Luka Doncic
Speaker 1: fans ask why did I have Lebron up at four
Speaker 1: after missing the playoffs the year before. It's fair question,
Speaker 1: but it's a very simple explanation. You guys know this.
Speaker 1: I always give enormous leeway two champions And yeah, I
Speaker 1: know you think, oh, Lebron, he won his titles in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve and twenty thirteen. In twenty sixteen, Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: But guess what do you remember when Janis won the title,
Speaker 1: the title that has Giannis really high on this list
Speaker 1: in terms of recognition of his ability. Yiannis won the
Speaker 1: title not that long ago, and that was just nine
Speaker 1: months after Lebron James and won a finals. MVP should
Speaker 1: have won the league. MVP, in my opinion, and was
Speaker 1: clearly the best player in the world. We are not
Speaker 1: that far removed from Lebron James being in that situation.
Speaker 1: It was very clearly roster oriented. That's why they won
Speaker 1: the freaking title. Russell Westbrook trade two awful years right,
Speaker 1: then get rid of Russell Westbrook immediately back in the
Speaker 1: Western Conference Finals. I thought Lebron deserved a great deal
Speaker 1: of leeway as a four time NBA champion and a
Speaker 1: four time finals MVP, with one relatively recently. Then Luka
Speaker 1: don chicch who got his ass kicked in the Western
Speaker 1: Conference finals once. Okay, so like and for you Luca fans, again,
Speaker 1: this is the most important detail. I am unbiased in
Speaker 1: the way that I apply that rule. If Luca wins
Speaker 1: a championship, I'm gonna be giving him the same leeway. Guys.
Speaker 1: If Nikola Jokic missed the playoffs this year because he
Speaker 1: got hurt, or Jamal Murray got hurt and Michael Porter
Speaker 1: Junior got hurt and the West was stacked and he
Speaker 1: ended up in a tough playing game on the road
Speaker 1: against Minnesota, and Jokic went for thirty eight, seventeen and
Speaker 1: fourteen and they lost, and he missed the playoffs. I'm
Speaker 1: not dropping Jokic very far. Probably still have him at
Speaker 1: the top unless someone else has a truly great playoff
Speaker 1: runt to supplant him. Why because he's the defending champ,
Speaker 1: not young Luka Doncic who hasn't accomplished anything in the league.
Speaker 1: Yet again, you guys, remember to me, talking about what
Speaker 1: Luca is capable of is fantasy basketball. That's theoretical. Talking
Speaker 1: about a guy who hoisted the trophy, that's reality. We
Speaker 1: play the games so that it's not theoretical. Theoretical only
Speaker 1: goes so far. What's the saying from Oppenheimer theory will
Speaker 1: only take you so far or whatever. That's the real
Speaker 1: If it was all theoretical, we would give all these
Speaker 1: guys a two K rating and give the trophy to
Speaker 1: the guy who had the highest two K rating. That's
Speaker 1: not how it works. You play the games. The games
Speaker 1: are what matters. The games lead to the trophy. The
Speaker 1: trophy has to mean something. And yes, I gave more
Speaker 1: leeway to the guy who had four trophies than the
Speaker 1: guy who has zero. And that's always going to be
Speaker 1: the way that I do this. And again, when it
Speaker 1: comes down to this, stuff. It's all subjective, and I
Speaker 1: guarantee you. Even if I guarantee you, even some of
Speaker 1: you on this who listen to this show who see
Speaker 1: the game very similarly to me, will have a very
Speaker 1: different list. There hasn't been a single person I've put
Speaker 1: on this list that I haven't gotten complaints about. I
Speaker 1: got complaints about how high Jamal Murray was, how high
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards was, how low Devin Booker was, how low
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard was, how low Damian Lillard was, how low
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell was. Everyone complaints because there're subjective lists, and
Speaker 1: that's just the way this stuff goes. I will say
Speaker 1: that I'd much rather have you guys give a basketball case.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of people disagree for one reason
Speaker 1: or another in the comments, and they write out all
Speaker 1: the reasons why. I always enjoy those because you're giving
Speaker 1: me your basketball perspective on why you disagree. But when
Speaker 1: it's just like, screw you, dumbass, why do you have
Speaker 1: so and so above whatever, like that doesn't move the
Speaker 1: conversation forward at all. I mean, we disagree, though, I
Speaker 1: guarantee you, if you made a list, obviously something on
Speaker 1: your list that I think is pretty foolish as well,
Speaker 1: but that's the nature of just how stacked the league is,
Speaker 1: how difficult these decisions are. I mean, I obsessed over
Speaker 1: this Lebron one forever, but I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like for me, I made the right decision putting him
Speaker 1: down at eight. But I guarantee you guys that when
Speaker 1: I come back to record for the next show, I
Speaker 1: will be getting absolutely slayed for having Lebron solow, because
Speaker 1: as crazy as every other fan base can be, you've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like Lebron James fans and how they
Speaker 1: can react about this kind of stuff. But that said
Speaker 1: most of you guys, obviously, I tend to overly focus
Speaker 1: on the negative and I have to be better about that,
Speaker 1: and I will be working on it as we go
Speaker 1: into this season. Most of you guys have been very
Speaker 1: positive and supportive, and I do sincerely appreciate that we
Speaker 1: are almost to the end of this list. We have
Speaker 1: seven more players. We will be back tomorrow with number seven.
Speaker 1: Some of you guys might have a guess as to
Speaker 1: who that is, but in the meantime, enjoy the rest
Speaker 1: of your night. I'll see you guys. Then the volume