Hoops Tonight: Ranking the Top 5 Players in NBA: #4, LeBron James

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eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had a great weekend. We're getting into the nitty gritty of our top twenty five NBA players list. We did number five Luca dont yesterday. Today we'll be doing number four. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more

of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. The last but not least, if you miss one of these videos and you can't get back to YouTube to finish it, we always released the audio form of them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's get into it. Number four, My personal favorite player of all time, Mr Lebron James. Now, you guys know the drill um

we're gonna be do and strengths and weaknesses. We're gonna be doing the biggest hopes, biggest fears and then biggest what if of his career. Starting with strengths. So Lebron average thirty eight and six on six true shooting last year. That's obviously excellent, albeit in only fifty six games. He did not make it to the postseason. Obviously, but Lebron is in the rare class of people that you have

to give a lot of leeway. They're kind of like Steph in the previous two seasons because you know, for a fact that what he does translates to the postseason, and that then missing the playoffs largely had to do with the roster and the available talent next to him. Kind of a weird parallels there throughout Lebron James and

Steph's career. So when we're talking about Lebron strengths, there is no place we can start other than him attacking the basket spend the bread and butter of his entire NBA career, and even through nineteen seasons, it's still is what he does best, and he does it better than basically everybody in the league except for one guy. So if I asked you who led the league in restricted area makes last year, you'd probably say honest right, and you'd be right. He averaged six point six restricted area

makes per game and finished them at seventy six point six. Now, those of you guys who have been listening to this entire list from five on, when I come to when it comes to bigger wings and big forwards, I've been looking for at least two makes per game and at least se and the good ones have been around three makes per game, right, and then the great ones are right around like four Nice is at almost seven per game and he's making almost seventy seven percent of him.

That's ridiculous. But what if I asked you who number two on that list was, It's Lebron James. He averaged six point five restricted area makes per games, so only one fewer than Janice, and he made them at seventy

five point three percent. So basically, Lebron James through nineteen seasons, with all the mileage on his body, with the horrific spacing that the Lakers had last year with Russell Westbrook on the court, the twenty two ranked three point efficiency team in the league, with all of those factors working against him, he was basically every bit as productive and efficient getting to the basket as Janice. That that's outrageous, and it just is the the latest example of just

how much of an alien Lebron James is. Now. I wanted to take a second here to talk about the value of rim pressure because we spent a lot of time over the postseason talking about Curry, Steph Curry and his gravity. Right, I have said that Lebron and Steph, in my opinion, are the two best offensive engines that I've ever seen, and I believe they are the two best offensive engines of all time, but the way they do it couldn't be more different, you know, like with

Steph the uniqueness of his gravity. Because all stars generate attention, it goes without saying there's not a player on this list that game plans aren't dictating sending multiple defenders too, So there's no uniqueness in the double team. The uniqueness is in the way with which players send attention. Teams send attention to Lebron James and Steph Curry. Now with Steph,

it's away from the basket. The panic that defenders have as they see Steph preparing to catch the basketball somewhere and with any light of day to shoot, drives defenders away from the basket. That opens up lots of four on three opportunities to finish around the rim, sometimes even one on o opportunities as a player breaks wide open underneath the basket because of a defensive mistake. That's the way that curries gravity manifest it's at the basket. With Lebron,

it's been a more traditional format. He collapses the paint and is always kicking out two shooters. That's the proven Lebron James formula of the last decade. If you got Lebron James healthy on the basketball court, with shooting and guys that can play defense, you have a very good chance of winning an NBA championship. And at one point one, I believe four out of eight or something crazy like that,

or four out of nine and something like that. But that's the way that Lebron's rim pressure manifest You think of it as like obviously getting to the basket almost seven times a game and making them that's offensive production there. There's obviously getting to the foul line. There's obviously the defense collapsing in him kicking out two shooters. But there are a couple of other elements there too. The value

of impressure manifesting offensive rebounding. If Lebron James beats the defender to the basket and the rim protector has to step over to help, even if he misses a lamp which he misses one out of four of them, right, even if he misses a layup, chances are because the rim protector had to step over to help on Lebron, that's your big man is now unguarded underneath basket and in many cases, over the course of the last few years that's been Anthony Davis, and that's been an easy

offensive rebound putback. The rim pressure just continually impacts winning on so many different levels. I always talked about I talked about this a lot last year in the playoff runt as it pertained to Janice, particularly with the Boston Celtics. The idea of rim pressure fatigue on a defense. What happened in the first three games of the series, it was like, oh, man, Grant Williams and Al Horford can guard your honest one on one. This is amazing. But

then what happened is the series progressed. Even Al Horford and Grant Williams basically became tissue paper by game four, and you honest was getting wherever he wanted, and then his numbers took off from there. When you've got guys like Lebron who's six nine to seventy and Janice, who's like seven foot and I don't even know how much he weighs. Those guys when they drive at you, it's you can get in front of them one time, you

can get in front of them two times. He might even be able to get in front of them three times, maybe more but there will be a point where he keeps coming at you and you will relent, and you will start to give ground, and he will start to finish at the rim. This is what makes Lebron such

a like, such a dependable playoff player. In the battle of wills of trying to keep him from getting to the rim or him trying to get to the rim, he's the bigger, stronger, more resilient athlete and he's going to win nine times out of ten in that pursuit of getting to the basket. So when we're talking about Lebron strengths, that's the that's the only place that we can start attacking the basket. But Lebron James is absolutely one of the best three level scorers in basketball right now.

Even through nineteen seasons, he shot on three point three mid range attempts per game. That's really good scoring from the mid range. On above the break threes, he took se even point four per game and made thirty six point four percent of them. That's really good. The best above the break three point shooters in the league are going to shoot around high volume ones, okay, So Lebron in terms of high volume three point shooting is about as efficient as you'll find from the good players in

the league. He took seven pull up jumpers per game and made thirty seven point four percent of them. I think this is Lebron's biggest edition in the late phase of his career. Obviously, in two thousand thirteen he became a reliable jump shooter, but back then there was a lot of catch and shoot, a lot of face up jab steps, not a lot of off the dribble stuff.

We talked about this a lot earlier in the list, but there's a certain amount of fluidity with the basketball that you're required to have to be a good off the dribble jump shooter. Transitioning from any dribble combination into your shooting shooting pocket with good energy transfer so that you flow up into a jump shot that you have a high percentage chance of making takes a great combination of ball handling a bill the in shooting ability that's

been the best increase in Lebron's career. I started to notice that in the late phase of Lebron's career, should say I started to notice that right around two thousand eighteen, where I was like, oh, like Lebron's like straight up now a fluid pull up jump shooter in the same class as like a Paul George or Kevin Durant things along those lines. Doesn't quite have the same level of fluidity as those guys. But in terms of the result,

you can't argue with the results. Like in NBA games facing NBA defenses, if you're taking seven pull up threes seven pull up jumpers a game and you're making over thirty percent of them, you're a good pull up jump shooter, but you can't argue with the results there. You guys might remember a game earlier this season, I think it was against the Warriors where Lebron had a monster score game.

He might even had fifty. And if you guys remember Kevin Durant, he's either on Instagram or on Twitter, but shouted out Lebron for his shot making display in that particular game. So what what is shot making as opposed to any other type of made field goal? To me, shot making is about the improvisation, and it's been another thing that Lebron is added later in his career that has helped, especially in clutch situations and in some of

the volume scoring away from the basket. So to me, if I was working with high school kids like I do every morning during the week, I would work on shots that would come within the flow of an offense. Right like we have a ball screen offense, and then we have a five out offense and the ball screen offense.

I'll have them work on shooting jump shots as they come off of the ball screen, if the making a read, if the defender backs down, I build everything off of a high hesitation so that they can always flow into the next move. If you're in high hesitation, you can go to the rim, you can go left, you can go right, you can cross over, you can step back, you can straight up pull up. It's like the ultimate kind of like barrier movers, I should say like bridge

move between all moves. Those are shots that come within the flow of the offense. Oh, he's way off of me. Let me raise up and knock this down. Shot making is about improvisation. Shot making is about like I don't have as much time on the shot clock, or I happen to find myself in an opening here, but my feet are somewhat unorthodox, Like I don't have my feet set normally. Maybe the ball is not in its normal

spot in my shooting pocket. Maybe the defender is contesting in a different way, so I need to shoot higher over the top, or you know, whatever the whatever the specific parameters are, it's about cultivating a unique shot to fit your situation. When it comes to shot making, no

two shots are alike. It's kind of just like I said, improvisational, and it specifically helps you in bailout possessions at the end of shot clocks and at the end of basketball games, when defenses are so locked in that you're in rhythm. Shots don't really exist anywhere on the court. You're not going to come down with a minute left in the game or on a high pick and roll and get a wide open three out of it. That's what's gonna happen.

It might involve you hitting an unorthodox triple combination to get to a specific spot on the floor where you see a little bit of an opening and the defenders still contests you really well, and you have to adjust your release, maybe shoot with more arc or whatever it is to get it over the top and to get

into score. That is high end shot making. If I was describing the best shot maker that I had ever seen in NBA history, this is what Kobe Bryant was best at the improvisational scoring, the ability to adjust different elements of his skill set to fit really bizarre single scenarios, whether it's like three pump fakes before rising over the top, switching to his left hand in the lane to make a shot, the wild array of our the wild array

of jump shots that he made in his career. That was what Kobe did better than anybody who ever did it was shot making. But that's another thing that Lebron added a lot towards the end, towards this phase of his career, And I thought it was cool that Kevin Durant pointed that out after that specifical and State Warriors game. Like I said, all those things that I just pointed out amounts to Lebron being as good of a three level score as we have in the league right now,

even after nineteen years. He's the best post up wing in basketball. There are better post up players, but they're usually bigs. In all. Among all players who had at least three post up possessions per game this year, Lebron ranked fifth and points per possession per post up, and the four guys ahead of him were all centers and They're all names that you could guess your kitchen beat eight and so on and so forth. Lebron is the best wing at posting up that we have in the

league that specifically helps him as a passer. We talked to yesterday a little bit about the difference between with Luca. We talked about the difference between high end playmaking and like kind of like regular making reads right, and I talked about how with the high end play playmaking, it's anticipatory it rather than reactive. It's not like you see

an opening. You see a potential to create an opening, and then you manipulate the defense to get them where you need them to be for you to make that opening. Why are so many big bad passing out of the post because they actually see where the defense is at, but they don't see the opening because the defense is playing in a passing lane or something, and so they'll

panic and they'll kick the ball out. Lebron will see that he'll be on the right block, right, and they'll be helping out of the week side corner, so left corner, and they might be positioned in a way where the opening is not there. But rather than panic and pass it out, he'll work a little bit deeper into the lane, or he'll attack the double team to get a little bit better of an angle to find that shooter in a spot where he can actually get him the basketball.

I always talk about this when I'm talking to Anthony Davison. His passing, there's a huge there's a huge element of patients when it comes to attacking double teams. When you panic, you won't be able to make them pay. But if you're methodical and embrace the double team, you will be able to find the openings and make them pay for double teaming you. This is what makes Lebron such a devastate post up player. If you leave him on an island to score, he's gonna score better than any wing

in all of basketball. If you send the double team, he's gonna methodically wait until he has an opening, and he's going to make you pay for doing it. Obviously, flowing kind of further into his his passing ability. We talked a lot about game management when we were talking about the Boston Celtics. If you guys remember um and their inability to understand the flow of a basketball game, like obviously, in an NBA game, you have like maybe

a hundred possessions. As a player who plays a normal shift, a set of shifts you're gonna have maybe eighty possessions. You have to understand the value of all those eighty possessions together rather than one specific possession. Lebron, in my opinion, is the best game manager in basketball. Nobody understands pace and flow more than him. Nobody understands rhythm more than him. Nobody understands role player confidence and how to feed guys

and keep them feeling good about themselves. Lebron also has an amazing understanding of pivotal moments, like understanding the right time in the game to hit the gas versus the time to pull back and let things go there. It's a matter of conserving energy and understanding the different levels of impact for each basket. Two points is not just two points. Two points in a specific moment in a game can be lethal. My favorite example of this two eighteen,

first round of the playoffs. Pacers are up two games to one, the Calves are on the road in Indiana. Lebron is clearly tired. If you remember how this series progressed, Indiana was so much more athletic that Cleveland would pretty frequently get out to big starts, but then Indiana would creep back up at the end of each game, and then it became a dogfight at the end, even as the series progressed later on. But in this particular game,

the same thing happened. Calves jumped out to a big start, Indiana came out like gangbusters end of the third quarter, early fourth, and the Calves were in some trouble and lebron you could tell what was running out of gas and he was being guarded by boy On Bogdanovitch. She was pretty good at guarding big forwards, like we talked about when we were talking about the potential Jazz Lakers

trade earlier last week. But as that game was progressing, I think lebron knew that he only had a handful of explosive moves left in the gas tank, and I was wondering why he wasn't attacking boy On Bogdanovitch enough, Like I felt like there was some missed opportunity there.

But then Kyle Korver hit a couple of threes, and when he hit the couple of three, suddenly the Calves were up by four with I think like two minutes left or something like that, and suddenly they get a stop and Lebron dribbles the ball up the right wing of the floor and I'll never forget it. He just no hesitation, didn't wait for the team to get into his set. He just did a hard right handed dribble into his left hand and then spun around boy On

Bogdanovitch and finished at the rim. It's completely unstoppable. Boyan had no chance. All of a sudden, they're up six with two minutes left. That six with two minutes left feels kind of like the game is over. Suddenly the energy got sucked out of the Indiana Arena. Suddenly you could see all the young players on Indiana, like Victor Oladipo, get tight and struggle in that setting that was in.

That was two points from Lebron that carried a massive amount of impact on the tenor and tone of the game. Those are little game management pieces. He could have hit that same move earlier in the fourth quarter when the game was tied, or when they were down by two or whatever it was, But if he did it then, it wouldn't have had the same psychological impact and would have still drained his gas tank. The way those super aggressive moves to the rim do. That's that's game management.

That's understanding the impact of each individual basket. That's understanding the flow of the game. I believe Lebron knew that he was gonna need his teammates to make some shots in order to have a chance to win that game. I think he believed that they would, and he was deliberately holding something in reserve because he knew he would need it at the end of the game. The best game manager in all of basketball. Last thing, on his passing.

We talked about this a little bit yesterday with Luca, but I talked about with the top tier playmakers with Luca, Lebron, Yokich, and Chris Paul. It's not just that they make advanced reads, it's that they are relentless in doing so. When you are relentless in making reads, it makes it so that teams are panicked to are terrified of actually sending help. That is what allows Lebron to be as he finished,

as efficient and productive of a rim finisher. Is the honest Jane is many times the athlete that Lebron is at this point in his career. Yet Lebron is just as impactful getting to the rim. Why is that? It's literally because of his passing ability. This is why I always say with Joannice that the number one thing that

I'm watching for his development is his asking ability. This is why I said in the Boston Celtics series that the reason why I'm all in on you honest now is I saw a lot of higher level playmaking from Janice there. Paranoying teams into thinking they cannot send help will allow you to operate on an island more frequently. And when you operate on an island and your Lebron James, you're going to get to the rim at will and you're going to finish. Obviously, everything Lebron James with that

does with the basketball translates to the playoffs. I I would argue that Lebron is the most consistent playoff performer of all time. You know, MJ's my personal greatest player of all time. But MJ had some shooting volatility, right Like, if you caught him, you know, probably once or twice a series, he just wouldn't shoot well, and that would massively impact his overall massively massively limit his overall impact

on the game. There is no player in the game of basketball that I've ever seen that if they were walking into a big game, I would feel more confident in their ability to come through for their team. Why is that all of the things that I have said that I value most about playoff basketball. He's strong, so he thrives in the physicality. He's versatile on both ends of the floor. On offense, he can attack you from literally any spot on the floor, and he's efficient from

literally all of the spots. On defense, he can help you defensively and literally any spot on the floor and literally all against any type of player. He can guard Jamaal Murray, he can guard Nicola Yokich, he can help at the rim, he can make defensive rotations and close out on shooters. He can do absolutely anything defensively, and then he's got the high end playmaking to complement his

offensive scoring ability. Those are all that's checking every box for playoff effect, for impacting winning in the playoffs, and that is why he is the most consistent playoff performer of all time in terms of you know, we're gonna talk a lot about Lebron's leadership today, especially when we

get to his weaknesses. Um, but there is no better leader you could have for a team with real championship potential, Like if you've got a team like the Lakers, where you've got a legitimate co star, really solid role players, good coach that fits the talent and and and healthy and everything kind of just comes together in that scenario, you could not have a better leader. Because Lebron understands

the highs and the lows. He understands the bigger picture of the two game regular season and the sixteen wins that you need to win an NBA championship. In the playoffs, he understands playoff chess matches. I've done this before. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but Lebron James's record in late series games like Game five, six, and seven is insane. He falls behind and almost every playoff series he plays, it seems like but it's because

he will feel things out. Like as he gets down one oh in a series, he doesn't panic. As he gets down to one in a series, he doesn't panic. He just makes reads on what's happening. Okay, this is where they're killing us. These are where areas of opportunities are areas of opportunity are I'm gonna outlast this guy physically. You know, if I can just win this game and get us back home, we might be able to steal this series. That That is the thing that Lebron James

does best. He understands the flow of those playoffs series. He's as good a playoff chess master master that we have in the game. All of this amounts to, as we get to the end of his strengths here, he's still a top two offensive engine in all of basketball when healthy, in my opinion, him and staff. Now, Yokis fans were all over my case yesterday as the volume tweeted out our ten through six and and look, guys like you should know in advance. This is the way

I do player evaluations. I'm always going to give Creed instant leeway to the guys who've been there longer. And here it goes both ways. Ten years from now, if Yokich is still in the conversation for the best player in the world, I will be advocating for him when everyone else is trying to push the next young guy to the top of the list. This is just the way that I'm gonna error on the side of giving additional leeway to the guys who have been there and

done that so many times before. So as good as I think Yokich is. If it's a if it's a playoff series where I've got two good basketball teams that are pretty equal in talent, and I've got Yoki leading one team and I've got a healthy Lebron James leading the other, I'm picking Lebron James. I don't think that's crazy. I don't think that's disrespectful to Yokich. I think that's just the reality of the way that I see the game and the things that I value um defensively. Last

note for Lebron on the positives. When he's engaged, he's an all defense level defender. When he's engaged. He struggles with dribble contain a lot more than he used to as he's lost a little bit of foot speed, but he's also gotten a lot better as a back line defender, particularly as a communicator and quarterback of the defense. Had a lot of good games like that this year, few and far between as a result of his lack of defensive effort overall. But we're gonna get to that and

the weaknesses, all right, Lebron's weaknesses. I tried really hard to come up with some some a list here, because he's a player that doesn't really have a lot of weaknesses, and even his weaknesses are more like weak relative to his strengths rather than weak relative to the rest of the league. So, for instance, Lebron's health is on on his list of weaknesses. We would argue that Lebron started to show some examples of unreliable health this year, right,

and he still played fifty six games. Like a down year for Lebron for health resulted in him playing a lot more than the vast majority of players who have had injury problems throughout their career. The big one that concerned me this year was the nie swelling at the

end of the year. You know, there's a difference between like, oh, I sprained my ankle, you know, like last year when someone fell into his ankle, like there's not a whole lot you can do about that, and then literally you're just playing basketball and one day your nie swells up. Like that was concerning Lebron literally towards the end of the year year last year, his knee just swelled up, swelled up, and he had to stop playing for a

little while. That sounds like an old man injury. So there's definitely some some concern on the health front with Lebron. Ankle sprains also seemed to be lasting longer. Lebron used to sprain his ankle and be fine before the game was over. Many times he'd stay in the game right after the sprain, but it just seemed like when he would sprain his ankle this last year, he'd missed time. That's very unusual compared to the way Lebron is. Health

is absolutely weakness at this point in Lebron's career. This one, this is probably Lebron's biggest weakness right now, and I understand it, but it can be some of the most frustrating things. It could be the it's one of the most frustrating things about watching him though. He just goes through these extended stretches of regular season malaise, and that

specifically manifests on the defensive end of the floor. You know what, one of the most one of the debates that we have all the time on Twitter is is Lebron James a good defensive player? And that's a loaded question because when he's trying, he's an all defense level defender. But last year he wasn't trying on about of nights. So I think that means you're a bad defensive player in the regular season, like unless Lebron shows us differently

this year. If we're trying to project the level of defensive impact Lebron will have on the Lakers this year, it's probably going to be a negative because of what we saw last year with his super inconsistent defensive effort. Now, he did say in that um excuse me and that Chris Haynes piece, he did say that he believes that the night and night out consistent effort is a legit area of opportunity for the this year's Lakers team. So

maybe he will recapture what he was in. But I would argue that's Lebron's biggest weakness right now, night in night out in the regular season. He doesn't care enough to try on the defensive end of the floor, and there's a good reason for that. I think he gets bored in the two game regular season. I think he sees the bigger picture almost too well. I think he's played in thousands of NBA basketball games and doesn't get

adrenaline anymore. I think there are a bunch of reasons why, but the reality is is he doesn't try hard enough,

consistently enough on the defensive end of the floor. This is where I have to get into his leadership again, because I believe that Lebron's inconsistent defensive effort last year actually was a huge driving force behind the rest of the team not defending, because if you're Carmelo Anthony and you're trying to decide whether or not to really lock in on a defensive possession and your buddy Lebron is not, you're probably not going too Even good defensive players like

Avery Bradley from this year was a bad defensive player for the Lakers. I would argue that has a lot to do with Lebron James and the example that he set from the top down, Anthony Davis stopped making extra effort plays that he made. I believe a lot of that has to do with Lebron James. As the leader, it is your job to set the tone so that your teammates follow and then as a team you can

be a great defensive unit. This is this is where we have to get into his leadership because, like I mentioned earlier, Lebron is probably the best leader you could have on a team that actually has championship capability, But he's probably the worst leader you can have on a team that doesn't have championship capability. If Lebron James does not believe his team can win, you can absolutely guarantee a handful of things are gonna happen, and there's a

good chance some other things are going to happen. Okay, here's what we can guarantee is going to happen. If he's on a team that he doesn't believe in, he will let the defensive rope, he will have really bad body language and appeared to be blaming his teammates for a lot of things that take place over the course of the game, even things that are his fault from time to time. Those are facts. And then there's also some possibility for passive aggressiveness and pouting. Now, he did

not do that last year, to his credit. That was more of an earlier Lebron James problem, particularly when he was in Cleveland the second time. But when Lebron doesn't believe in his team, you can count on him letting go of the defensive rope. You can count on him having bad body language, and he might resort to some pouting and passive aggressiveness. That means you're a bad leader

for that specific situation. I've always called Lebron a fair weather leader and and and I think again, the way Lebron would probably describe it to you as like who cares we didn't have a chance to win that year?

And you know what, he's not wrong, But there are going to be people that are turned off by that because they would prefer the co me Brian approach, approach where he goes down with the ship, meaning like, even if he doesn't believe in his team, he just is gonna try like hell to win every single game, because

that's just what his character is. But I've talked to many Lakers fans who have told me that they wish they could go on a time machine and go back to two thousand thirteen and tell Kobe to stop and to give up because his body broke trying to save that sinking ship. So again, different types of leadership styles. But like Lebron is the kind of guy when the going gets really tough, like unsalvageably tough. He's not a

foxhole guy. That's just kind of the reality. We talked about this earlier, but on defense, he can start to he's at this phase of his career he struggles to contain quicker players off the dribble, and then you know, I'm getting pretty nippicky here. But he's a below average free throw shooter. Last year he actually did get up to seventy from three from the free throw line, which is a nice little sign of improvement. But he was

on three consecutive seasons in the sixties before that. It's funny people would always tell me, like, oh, Lebron is not clutch. Look at he missed that clutch free throw, and I'd be like, it's not a clutch thing, it's a bad free throw shooting thing. Like Lebron is one of the both the best clutch basketball players of all time. Why would he be not scared in any clutch situation but then be terrified at the free throw line. That's

not the case. He's just he's a sixties six percent free throw shooter during those years, and so if you're taking two free throws, there's a very good chance he's gonna miss one statistically, because that's just what that that you're gonna miss literally, uh, you know what, what is that thirty three out of every hundred free throws, Like,

that's just that's just what's gonna happen. And then and last, but not least again really nitpicky, but his end of the game shot selection, he can be a little bit like Lebron will pound the air out of the basketball at the end of games, work to clock down and take a step back three Now, I I think that it disrupts the flow of his own offense a little bit. Lebron would probably counter that it disrupts their offense as well,

and he's right. When you strangle the pace of the game, it affects the rhythm of every player on the floor. But there are times where I wish he didn't settle so much for tough step back three point shots at the end of games. That's all really nitpicky, Like look, I mean, look at that. We just went through Lebron's weaknesses, and it's health. He was only able to play fifties

six games last year regular season. Malaise happens to just about every veteran player and consider inconsistent leader unlimited teams. The teams are limited anyway, he struggles to dribble contained, but he's a good defensive player when he's locked in. He's a below average free throw shooter, but he seems to have fixed it last year, and he can be a little tricky with any game shot selection. Lebron's weaknesses, they're all small weaknesses. It's just a reality, and that's

why he's a top five player in this league. Alright. Greatest hopes, I would, I sincerely hope that Lebron is able to stay healthy for you more years, because I do believe We talked about this before, but I believe he has the potential for a really productive post prime because of his ability to pass the basketball and because of his size and strength, he can become a twenty point per game point forward that is a super productive top fIF team player in this league and capable of

being the second best player on a championship team. Which brings us to Anthony Davis, because obviously the ideal outcome for Lebron as he wins a couple more championships as a Laker, but that does not happen without Anthony Davis. And I don't mean Anthony Davis just in general. I mean the version of Anthony Davis He is the key

to the end of Lebron James career. No player, not even the greatest stars in NBA history, can consistently win without great talent surrounding them, and the Lakers do not have great supporting talent, so they need Anthony Davis to be the top five player he was in the bubble for Lebron to be able to have enough talent around him for him to be able to win championships as he gets into closer to his forties. And then obviously

Kyrie Irving would help. I was thinking about this a lot earlier today as I was diving into Lebron's numbers. You know, some of that late game shot selection stuff. He can have Kyrie help in those situations. There's there's skill sets compliment each other so well, like we saw from Cleveland, what what an What an excellent addition to potentially help Lebron age more gracefully. And then obviously, if Lebron gets a couple more titles, he has a legitimate

goat case. Lebron's case has always been longevity in the variety of his success, but MG's got this dominance factor. It's like six titles in eight years that's ridiculous, And the only other player has ever mentioned that that conversation is Kareem who has six titles, but towards the end, he wasn't the best player on those teams, and in many cases wasn't even really a star. He was just

kind of like a role player. Right. Well, if le Bron James gets two more championships as a legitimate bona fide star and is receiving finals MVP votes, maybe even winning Finals MVP, that could be what gets him to the point where he can match MJ's dominance and have the longevity that puts him over the top. My greatest fear with Lebron is the Lakers incompetence. You know, obviously the Lakers have a responsibility to them first, and I'm a big team overplayer guy just in general, because I

don't think you can win unless you have that approach. However, I don't think you could pick a worse group of individuals to oversee the end of Lebron James's career than Rob Polink and Jeannie Buss. And that's really unfortunate because everything that I just talked about involving this potential post prime where Lebron wins a couple more championships that relies on competence, that depends on savvy moves being made, and I just I just don't see a universe where those

moves are made. And that's and that's really unfortunate. But but who knows. Maybe maybe this Kyrie Irving thing will allow Rob Blinky, Rob Blink and Jennie Bust to fall asked backwards into a good basketball team and Lebron, Kyrie and a D will be able to cover up all the flaws. Again, I guess we'll see. The other big one is a d s lack of motivation. Like I talked about earlier, they need Anthony Davis to be a top tier superstar in order to win championships. A D

hasn't cared much since the bubble. That's what it caused him to show up in camp out of shape two years in a row. You don't shoot eighteen percent from three over the course of the season unless you're not working hard enough on your jump shot, and that's clearly what is going on with Anthony Davis. Obviously, injuries play a role, but if he was more diligent with his work,

he would be a better three point shooter. That's just that's just the reality, and so a d S lack of motivation is one of my greatest fears for the end of Lebron James career. And lastly, injuries. Obviously, it doesn't matter if any of these things go right if in your twenty Lebron has some sort of season ending injury, and obviously all it takes is one of those to disrupt the health of the body enough to end someone's career,

just like it happened with Kobe Bryant. All right. Lastly, the biggest what if of Lebron's career, Now, there's a bunch of them, like, for instance, what if Dwyane Wade stayed healthy, then he probably never leaves Miami and they probably win more. What if Katie doesn't go to Golden State, Calves probably win in two thousand seventeen, at least maybe twoeen. What if Kyrie and Kevin Love stay healthy in two thousand fifteen, I think Calves win that championship if they do.

Those are there's a lot of what ifs there. Lebron has had a long career and he's won a lot of basketball games, so there's obviously gonna be a lot of what IL is, but I wanted to go. It was something that we haven't already talked about at length, uh in some other capacity else we're on the show. So here's my greatest one. If if I was Lebron, what if Cleveland got him a legit co star early on?

You know when when when we're comparing Kobe and Michael Jordan and step and Lebron, too often people will say things like, well, Lebron's mercenary. All he wants to do is go from one team to the next. Every time things don't go right, he wants to shuffle the deck.

You probably all heard that in some capacity before, obviously glossing over the simple fact that m J got Scottie Pippen right away, well not right away, but pretty quickly when he got into Chicago, and he always was playing alongside a bona fide star, so he had no reason to want to go elsewhere. He always had enough talent to win. Kobe Bryant literally played next to Shaquille O'Neal. Then when he lost Shock, he went on sports radio like every day demanding a trade. And then he got

Palla Gasol and one again and he was happy. So would Kobe have been a mercenary too if he didn't have Shack or would he actually have been if they didn't get pau Gasol, And then looking at Steph Curry, obviously they're one of the most well run organized organizations in the NBA, arguably the most well run organization. And he has consistently been at a talent advantage throughout his career. This last year was one of the few seasons in his career where he kind of overcame a talent disadvantage

two steps credit. That's why he's a top six player of all time. But the point is is Lebron was a victim of his circumstance in a lot of ways. They did not get him a Scottie Pippen, or at Clay Thompson and Dremond Green, or Shaquille O'Neil, or a Pau Gasol early on. He did not have that, and he wasted seven years of his career trying to float way overmatched rosters, two lofty goals of trying to win

a championship. And I believe that that actually led to Lebron's mistrust in organizations that caused him to behave the way he did over the course of the next a decade, being mistrust full of pat Riley and wanting to leave because he wanted to cut Mike Miller, for instance, or doing one and once the entire time he was in Cleveland except for the end, or even now with him withholding his extension potentially to try to leverage the Lakers

into making moves. I believe that the Calves being so incompetent early led to Lebron mistrusting organizations and then feeling like he had to do it himself, feeling like he had to be the one to communicate with Dwayne Wade, to communicate with Anthony Davis, to communicate with Kevin Love, to communicate with Kyrie Irving. He felt like he had to be the g M. And so even though Lebron's had a remarkably successful career with that strategy, I think

it's a really interesting what if. What if Lebron got Anthony Davis in his third season and played his entire career alongside Anthony Davis. He probably never leaves Cleveland. He probably still wins at least four championships, and the entire kind of like aura of his career as a different

vibe than the one it has now. I think it's a really interesting one if he's one of the few players that's if we if we're going at the if we're going down the list of the best players of all time, all of them were drafted alongside all time great players MJ with Scottie Pippen, right like Magic Johnson with Kareem Larry Bird, with everybody that was playing for the Celtics. You know, Kobe Bryant was shock. Lebron's the

odd one out there. Lebron is the one that spent the first near decade of his career playing alongside very limited talent, and it would be really interesting to see where his career is right now if that wasn't the case. Last note on Lebron. You know, when when it comes to these player rankings, it's really difficult to do because everyone's so crazy. Like Lebron fans still think he's the best player in the world, most of them, and that's crazy.

He is going to be in his twentieth season and honest is just better than him right now, you know. But then Lebron detractors don't even think he's top five, which is a massive disrespect to what he can still do on the basketball court when he's healthy. I feel like four is safe for me. What I'm trying to accomplish there by by putting him at four is expressing the obvious fact that he's not the best player in

the world anymore. But on any given night, if he's got the pieces, he can be better than the best guy. And if your team is going against Lebron James with talent in a playoff series, you're you're you're scared to death because you know what he's capable of. And I don't think he can be any lower then where he's at, and I believe that that's a that's a fair place to put him. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. We'll be back tomorrow at number three. The volume