LeBron James Discussion: Not Returning To The Lakers

So.. he is driving more than ever and gets zilch...

Figures.

f*** the NBA.

 

yep. and if lebron was officiated like harden, league would have to close its doors due to lack of competition.

thought it was funny how differently lebron and zion were treated the other night. zion should have had 5 offensive fouls, imo.

 

Does driving to dish count towards Drives/Games? Because I'm sure he's doing that more than ever.

 

good point. attempts in the paint and at the rim would be helpful to contextualize this:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01.html#all_shooting

he's above his career average in terms of percentage of attempts from 0-3 and 3-10 feet. and his total FGAs are right on his career average.

thus, if his drives are up and his drawn-fouls are down, you do wonder about officiating.

the other possibility is that earlier in his career, he was such a ferocious finisher that the fouls had to be more obvious in order to prevent the basket. in the pels game, a dude clearly got his arm with no call (the tv crew replayed it, which i wasn't expecting). 8 years ago, that guy's arm hits lebron's shoulder as he's dunking on him.

 

Regardless of everything said, his FTr is the lowest of his career by a wide margin (excluding his rookie season). LeBron is being treated as a random player in the league. I always heard that superstars get the calls and you have to earn them. LeBron is the biggest superstar and has earned calls but gets none. Something is wrong with this picture below:




When Harden can get 50-60% FT's per FGA, it's disgusting. This league penalizes guys like LeBron who are just too big and skilled. Instead, guys who flop like Harden get every call. Zion is out there playing sumo but guys are wack-a-moling LeBron and he's rarely getting to the FT line.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2020_advanced.html

LeBron ranks 88th in FTr. Kevin Love, Ja Morant, Eric Bledsoe, Marcus Morris... I can name them all. Heck, even Caruso gets a higher FTr. I love me some Caruso but this guy does not get fouled more often than LeBron on a rate perspective.

Are Rob, Frank, and the Lakers management bringing this up to league officials? It's simply a joke.

 

Beast at 35

 

who cares. in five years, he won't be a superstar, then where will we be?

 

... and Luka

 

Bottom line about this team is we are on the rise. Gone are the Jimbo days where we made all the wrong decisions. The reputation is dying with those days. The narrative about our FO being a cluster F are over. We treat our players with dignity and respect. Heck, even Jeannie Buss came out in support of Howard leaving us before, acknowledging that we didn't put him in a position to succeed. That was mighty gracious and it really helps Howard to shed the negative narrative towards him. The Lakers don't screw their players, they treat them with respect and all the other players know it. We are all going to see over the next few years that THIS reality is going to pay dividends. Who would NOT want to play here now?

 

I know it's selfish to say this but I think Kobe's death will inspire some players to come here and win as well. Like, if the timing of this happened before free agency started, we'd probably have Kawhi just because Kawhi would have wanted to win for Kobe.

 

^^ off the top of my head... manager and Paulina

 

I still laugh about how many people here didn't want LeBron James.

 

Guilty, have been eating tons od crow with a bright smile ever since he joined

 

Same here. Admittedly I was a bit too obsessed with internal growth, developing young talent and building a dynasty like the Spurs or Warriors... but the cold hard fact is that none of the kids are Duncan or Curry. They aren't good enough to build a team around. I'd take Lebron and AD 10 times out of 10.

 

proud to say this was never me. i didn't think we had a real shot at him, but i knew it would save the franchise. and it has.

 

I tried to tell people how lucky we were to have him, but it felt like it fell on deaf ears