I must admit that I liked the way LeBron played during the pre-season. He did things I never expected him to do, like running the coach's offense and not his own, playing off-ball, running around screens while off-ball, setting off-ball screens to get other players open and being much quicker with his passes. Defense is still an issue, but if he keeps this up in the regular season and playoffs, Stephen A. Smith might not look so crazy anymore.
Did we see LeBron's old habits die? The answer to that question to me means the difference between a Conf. Finals appearance and a first round exit.
LeBron played really good defense in the 4 pre-season games he played most notably against Milsap with the Nuggets.
I actually thought Milsap missed a lot of gimmes. But I'm not going force anything here. I've also seen breakdowns he was responsible for that led to open 3s that were missed. His rebounding was active though.
Savage. The Ringer had a 7-8 hr NBA show yesterday. If you fast forward to the 2 Hour:1 Minute:47 Seconds mark, it’s the intro to the HBO series “The Leftovers”. It’s a story about how people coped after 1/4 of th population mysterious vanished right on the spot. Instead of the regular intro, they had pictures of the Cavs, with Lebron missing in all the pics. Read the cast members and the “special thanks”. It’s pretty amusing.
Luke Walton thinking long term regarding LeBron James' minutes
Quote:
"We want to make sure we're not only playing at our best come the end of the season but that he's fresh," Walton said. "And that's a goal for us. And it's a goal that we're on a journey and it's not a one-year journey. We're continuing to try to and be our best season by season, but also as each one goes on.
"And obviously he gives us the best opportunity to be at our best."
Number cruncher extraordinaire Kirk Goldsberry is back with ESPN and has a fun breakdown of Lebron's evolution as an offensive monster and his impact as a passer on his teams' shooting:
Quote:
One way James has overcome his relative mediocrity as a jump-shooter is his ability as a creator. He is arguably the best 3-point assister in the NBA.
Last season, James Harden led the NBA by sinking 265 3-pointers. That's a big number -- it helped Harden win his first MVP -- but James led the NBA by assisting on 344 3-pointers. Over the past five seasons, Curry has emerged as a new kind of scoring wunderkind, draining an incredible 1,485 3-pointers since 2013-14 season. But in that same period, James the creator has assisted on 1,318 made triples.
Lebron has never averaged a double double. That ends this season.
People used to call Lamar Odom "Mr. Triple-Double" despite the fact he finished his career with 12 of them. As much as Kyle Lowry currently has.
The reason why they used that nickname was because he was always fooling us with 19/10/8 or 20/12/9 stat lines.
Given his career averages of 13.3/8.4/3.7, I think you're being overly generous with "always." In fact, he did it only 13 times as a Laker (looking at games of 18+/8+/8+). If you reduce the criteria to 16/7/7, then it's 27 games.
Lebron has never averaged a double double. That ends this season.
We’re gonna need him to crash the boards harder than ever. I predict Bron to be 2nd in mvp behind AD. I think Bron puts up: 26/10/6 on 52/35/75 shooting. Hopefully Luke’s able to keep his minutes low 33-34 mpg
I’ve heard a little of what and who is in #ShutUpAndDribble ... gonna be incredible to see what @KingJames @mavcarter @gothamchopra did on this project for @Showtime starting Nov 3.
Lebron has never averaged a double double. That ends this season.
We’re gonna need him to crash the boards harder than ever. I predict Bron to be 2nd in mvp behind AD. I think Bron puts up: 26/10/6 on 52/35/75 shooting. Hopefully Luke’s able to keep his minutes low 33-34 mpg
Lebron has never averaged a double double. That ends this season.
We’re gonna need him to crash the boards harder than ever. I predict Bron to be 2nd in mvp behind AD. I think Bron puts up: 26/10/6 on 52/35/75 shooting. Hopefully Luke’s able to keep his minutes low 33-34 mpg
That all sounds reasonable. I could even see 11rpg this season. And I've got Lebron for MVP. _________________ Under New Management
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