Reminder: LeBron still does impossible stuff
2014-12-16Hi, it’s me. Thick in the middle of law school finals (had one today, have another tomorrow, and the last one on Friday), so time hasn’t been my friend of late. I still wanted to get in on this little bit of absurdity. The fun starts at the 2:22 mark of the video above (props, as always, to @DawkinsMTA)
Off a Kemba Walker fast-break layup, LeBron grabs the inbounds pass, gets into a full quarterback stance, and heaves the ball from just inside the Cavs’ free-throw line to Kyrie, who made a ridiculous layup in traffic. (I’m fairly sure Kyrie makes more layups off damn near the top of the backboard than anyone else in the league.) Oh, and LeBron threw that with his left hand.
It’s pretty well-known at this point that LeBron does everything but shoot a basketball left-handed, and his ability to drive and finish with his left hand has always been a vital and underrated part of what makes him great, but that’s freaking ludicrous.
As has been mentioned, LeBron’s pretty clearly past his physical prime — he’s not the holy-christ jumper he used to be, and, more importantly, he doesn’t have enough in his legs to compete on both ends for the full game the way he used to. This began in earnest last season (I said as much on this CBS.com podcast! Don’t listen to the part where I say Golden State was dramatically overvaluing Klay Thompson. Just focus on where I say LeBron is past his physical prime. I am so often wrong.), especially the defense part, but nobody really noticed it because people are slow to change their opinions on how good perimeter defenders are (even GMs — seriously, guys?), and the Heat’s offense got LeBron the ball in positions where he had a deep post-up or an outright layup or dunk, minimizing the need for him to slice all the way through defenses like he did in his first stint with the Cavs.
The point here is that even though LeBron’s crazy dunks are probably gone, he’s still a player capable of doing insane, insane things, and we should appreciate them.
(I’d say I’d like to see more of the kind of action we get at the 2:10 mark of the above video, where LeBron gets an easy layup after catching Lance Stephenson cheating a screen, but that play was entirely thanks to Al Jefferson. His man is setting a screen, LeBron is basically scratching his back, and he’s just standing still and staring straight ahead, thinking about muffins. Never change, Big Al.)
I don’t think Lebron does have the “it’s all on me” mentality anymore. He took a return trip to that when he put up 41 relatively meaningless points recently, but for the most part he seems very interested in developing the team into something better than its parts. Don’t forget that David Blatt made his money with teams that he basically just figured out how to make work without star power. He was definitely the missing piece during the last Lebron led cavs era teams. His weird lineups aside, he is figuring it out.
Great post, John, and good timing too. It’s easy to take for granted what we’ve got. I’ve been really interested in this phase of LeBron’s career. The Magic comparisons thats have surfaced recently make a lot of sense. But I think he does more than Magic. He’s orchestrating almost every aspect of the game. And when he’s dialed in on defense, he is that once-in-a-generation player we’ve come to know. This is both amazing and worrisome, since it’s clear that the “weird monster” is not so fierce when he sits. It’s the story of his career: teams come to depend… Read more »