LeBron James Discussion: Not Returning To The Lakers

No hill to die on here so don’t go there. But considering it was his first action of the new season after looking still good athletically like Westbrook ( though of course not like their primes …. duh) at his age … and maybe portending for this season again to be how that looked last year before he hurt the foot, agree to disagree on this. This was a guy who still chased down dunks from behind. And weighs 240-250 at 6’9”.

 

yeah, not sure what everyone's watching in this thread. if you didn't know lebron's history and showed up at a game tomorrow, you wouldn't call him athletic relative to other starting caliber nba players. big? yes. skilled? yes. athletic? nay.

this is the latest in the line of things i think it's weird that people are offended by on this message board.

 

I’d like to know how many 6’9” 240lb guys there are in the NBA that are more athletic than what LeBron can do on the floor and above the rim. Honest question, really don’t know. How about over just 30 that size? I saw some comments a couple days ago calling him still one of the fastest players or fastest big men in the league. Jackson Hayes stopped mid interview last week stunned by what he saw LeBron do out on the floor with a windmill dunk off a bounce pass to himself.

And clearly you seem to be talking about me, abeer. I’m not offended … I honestly feel (I know … whatever) that out of the blue you’ve dropped two really odd/whack takes in the last couple days …. IMO. The worst interview subject ever, for a couple questions he answered honestly at that point in time …. with JHS. And now this one that LeBron’s not obviously less athletic than in his prime, but rather he’s not athletic anymore period compared to the average NBA player. At 6’9” 240. Sorry, I reflexively question when I “think” I see whack takes.

 

Zion of course but I wonder which others are that size that do what he does as high in the air as he does it. LeBron’s so big for his height, he’s like a tight end. I keep thinking about him chasing down guys breaking away from behind and elevating his mass to block the shot 2 feet above the rim. It’s not all the time and sustained of course.

 

Dagger to my liver…

 

having to invoke age, size, and skill (qualities that aren't athletic) and point to single plays that occur once every 6 weeks don't strengthen the case. we can't play lebron at sf anymore because he can't contain penetration from nba sfs. to me, this means you aren't particularly athletic.

i stand by my earlier statement: if you didn't know who lebron was and watched an nba game, you wouldn't walk away remarking about that aspect of his game. how this is controversial is beyond me.

 

I think the notion of athleticism is so broad that drives both sides to be correct. LeBron struggles with quicker SFs because he lost speed which is a type of athleticism. But on another token, he can handle Cs because he's phisically strong which is another type of athleticism.

It's only natural he lost athleticism but to say he's not athletic is a big stretch. Jokic is not athletic. LeBron is a beast.

I think age matters because it's natural you lose the first step and that burst that made him unstoppable. He's less athletic for sure but still combines a fair amount of strength and pace that makes him athletic, imo.

Size matters imo. If he goes at the same speed of Vincent, his athleticism is higher than Gabe's

 

if he gets a running start, he can still dunk. I guess that just means he' just tall.

But his step back 3 is mediocre at least. He could play another 5 years based upon that alone lol.

 

fair enough. i don't consider strength as part of athleticism, but i can see why it's hard to separate in some cases. but then isn't jokic athletic? because he's quite strong. one way to think of it is that when we call someone specifically "unathletic" we generally mean slow in terms of either straight line speed, lateral quickness, and burst/explosiveness, thus when i think athletic, i think the opposite of that, with size and strength being separate (though often strongly correlated) attributes.

 

Lebron still has good speed in the open floor with a running start but weak acceleration. He struggles to drive around centers in the half-court without a running start. He can also jump high with a running start but can't jump at a standstill. His overall athleticism (quick twitch) would be average at best.

Maybe that was the foot injury, but either way he'll still find ways to be very effective. His size, strength, skill and IQ are all pretty elite.

 

Time to see the wiley old washed up athlete tricks with occasional flashes of the Old Lebron for fun sprinkled in from time to time after some time off.

 

i disagree with none of this! he's still a top 10-15 nba player, no doubt. he's just not doing it by being athletic.

 

He looks old but like I said he's looked old to start the season for the last 8 years: we'll see if he kicks into gear after a few months like he's done every other time.

(don't get me wrong he's still very good and he's definitely has the skills in terms of vision, cutting, scoring to fit in which he did very well)

 

Yeah I'm not worried. No reason to exert in pre-season.

Though one day, he won't be able to rise again.

 

He’s still limited to 3’s, layups and dunks. Midrange is meh. But in spite of that, he still impacts the game at the highest level, and THAT’S why he’s my favorite player.