The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players of Last 25 Years: Why LeBron James has the best NBA career ever

Episode Date: September 9, 2023

Jason Timpf continues his ranking of the top 25 players of the last 25 years by revealing No. 1, LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat & Los Angeles Lakers. Jason discusses LeBron's incredible list of basketball accomplishment and consistent playoff dominance is the reason he tops this list. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. All right, welcome to Oobes tonight here at The Volume. Happy Saturday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great start to your weekend. We are live on Amp. So if you're watching on YouTube or listening on the podcast feeds, don't forget that Amp is the very first place that you guys can get these shows reaching the very end of our top 25 players in the last 25 years today with number one, Mr. LeBron James.

and then I've got three mailbag questions for the end of the show as well. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss any show announcements and if for whatever reason you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. Don't forget you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. LeBron James's accolades.

Just a ridiculous list here. Four-time NBA champion. Best player on four championship teams. 13 times first team all-NBA. That's the most in NBA history, two more than anybody else. 19 total all-MBA selections. That's also the most in NBA history for more than everyone else. Six all-defense selections.

He was the scoring champion in 2008. He was the assist champion in 2020. He is the NBA's all-time leading score, not just in the regular season, but also in the postseason. LeBron James has 2,036 more playoff points than any player in NBA history. He's also 32nd on the all-time rebounds list, fourth on the all-time playoff rebounds list, fourth on the all-time assists list, second on the all-time playoff assists list. And he is a four-time regular season MVP, which is the fourth most in NBA history,

and he won it four out of five times. Now, one of the prevailing narratives surrounding LeBron's careers, is he should have won the MVP every season. I don't see it that way. The only year that I think he should have one that he didn't was the 2020 season. I thought that a really weak Eastern Conference kind of bolstered Janice's numbers

and his team's performance. And LeBron and the Lakers were right behind him, and LeBron was just a better basketball player and he demonstrated so in the playoff run. I thought that was the one year he deserved it. But every one of the all-time greats kind of has a year like that in there. MJ's got a few of them too. but LeBron four regular season MVP's feels about right.

He's also a four-time NBA Finals MVP, which is the second most in NBA history to MJ. The only two players in NBA history that have at least four finals MVPs are LeBron James and Michael Jordan. So LeBron has two major claims to fame that I want to hit on. The first is LeBron is the most accomplished basketball player ever. LeBron's list of accomplishments, which I just ran through, is so insane that if you divided his...

career in half in the summer of 2014. So if you took the first Cavs stint and the Miami Heat stint on one side and pretended that was one player, and then you took the second Cavs Stint and the Lakers years and thought of that as a second player, both of those players would come in in the top ten of this list. To be exact, they'd come in at number six and number seven. So let's look at them separately for a second. LeBron pre-summer of 2014, four MVP's, 10 all-MBAs selections, five trips to the NBA finals, best player on two championship teams, two finals MVPs,

that comes in at number six on this list. Easy. LeBron post summer 2014. No MVP's, but finished second twice and third twice. Nine all-MBA selections, five more trips to the finals, best player on two more championship teams, two more finals MVPs.

That comes in at seventh on this list. That's ridiculous. You're taking two complete separate sections of his career and independently, they are all-time great NBA players. That is why he is the most accomplished player in NBA history. He's the NBA's all-time-leading score. He's the NBA's all-time-leading playoff score. He's the most first team all-MBAs in NBA history,

the most all-N-A selections overall in NBA history. That's his first claim to fame. Nobody accomplished more in their NBA career than LeBron James. The second claim to fame is that he is the most consistent playoff performer of all time. Because of LeBron's overall versatility in the many different ways that he impacts winning, and the fact that he doesn't rely on his jump shot to be great offensively, he doesn't have the problem that most perimeter players do in NBA history, which is, oh, my shot's not falling, my effectiveness craters. Don't get me wrong, if

LeBron's making his jump shot, it's up at an even higher level than that. But on any given night, because LeBron doesn't need to make jump shots to impact winning, he was the most consistently great playoff player in NBA history. Here's a little stat, obviously, You just knew that from watching him. And as a fan, what it was like rooting for LeBron was like every single time there was a big play off game, you just knew he was going to play well. I don't really know how else to describe it. It was like basically from about, I would say from 2017 on, if it was almost certain,

but it was kind of something that was taking place before then as it built that faith and confidence. But like 2017, 18, the 2020 playoff run, if there was a big game, I just knew LeBron was going to play well. It was the craziest thing. As a fan rooting for him, it was a wild reliability that he had. And I wanted to give a stat to kind of demonstrate that for you guys. So LeBron James shot below 40% in a playoff game.

Just 19 times in 168 playoff games from 2012 to 2020. That's the period that I think LeBron was the best player in the world from 2012 to 2020. Seven of those 19 games were in that 2015 season when he had the bad back, and both of his co-stars were hurt, so he was facing. obviously some pretty tough coverages. During the nine years that MJ, excuse me, during that nine-year stretch there for LeBron, there was about a one-in-ten chance,

19 and 168 playoff games, roughly about a one-in-ten chance that LeBron would have a rough offensive night, right? To give you an example, Michael Jordan in the 90s, shot below 40% 23 times in 142 playoff games. That's over 16% of the time. So to give you an idea that, like, MJ was prone to these bad shooting nights because he relied a lot on perimeter shot making.

Obviously, he was a gunning score. That was his main way to impact winning. So that doesn't change. I think MJ's the go. You guys know that. But that doesn't change the fact that on a night and night out basis, there was more volatility with Michael Jordan. When it comes to volatility, no player had to deal with less of that than LeBron James in his prime. He was the most consistently great playoff player in NBA history.

Now, there are three crowning achievements that I want to dive into with LeBron, but all three rely on a very important moment that happened in LeBron's career that I want to talk about. I want to talk about the 2011 finals and what that meant for LeBron James. Big black mark on his resume is something that is repeatedly brought up by his detractors. Now, those of you guys who have been listening to the show for a while, I've heard me say this before, but I view 2011 as a very, very important moment in LeBron's career because he was already incredible. good at basketball and was already an incredibly hard worker, but he needed to go to another level beyond that if you wanted to achieve his ultimate goal, which was to be the greatest basketball

player ever. He needed a wake-up call, in my opinion, in order to accept that reality. I think when you saw the 2011 heat form, when you saw that weird parade they had at the arena, when you saw some of the way LeBron carried himself during that season, I think he was under the impression that it was going to be easier than it actually ended up being. And I think that that that wake-up call at the hands of the Mavericks ended up being exactly what he needed. Now, it was bad. Over the last four games of the Maverick series, LeBron averaged just 15.8 points per game, shot 44% from the field and 19% from three, and several specific weaknesses in his game got exposed. For one, he had no real confidence in his jump shot, especially in high-stakes games.

Number two, he couldn't play with his back to the basket. Why does that matter? all these downhill power players, once you get to a certain phase against certain caliber of defenses, they pack the paint, and you just can't drive in there like that. And so having the ability to back a defender down and more methodically work your way into the paint is a very, very important trait in the late stages of the NBA playoffs for power players. And the navs were able to switch JJ Barreya or Jason Kidd on him, or even when he had, you know, Sean Marion on him, he was capable of physically inflicted himself, but the paint was packed and he did not successfully navigate that because he couldn't

turn his back to the basket. So that was the second flaw that got exposed. And then the third big one was he responded to adversity by becoming passive rather than being more and more aggressive. And all three of those, he immediately addressed. He came to the surface. He was embarrassed. It was an ugly summer and he got in the lab and he fixed those problems. Started by relentlessly working on his jump shot. Famously, he would travel with his shooting coach. So when he'd go around with Nike to all the events he'd have to do in the summer, he'd bring a shooting coach with him. And they would just work on his jump shot every single day.

Now, as you know, progress with jump shot is incremental. You have to shoot thousands and thousands of shots to experience a slight improvement. And so it wasn't something that happened overnight, but you did see it happen pretty quickly over the rest of his prime. So to give you an idea, in 2012, LeBron had a 37% effective field goal percentage on jump shot. in the playoffs. 2013, 47%. 2014, 52%.

So quickly rising efficiency on jump shots in the playoffs. 2015 was his down year. Like I said, that was the year that his back was hurt and they were packing the pain on him. He had really rough jump shooting season. That's the year that I always refer to on this show as LeBron's like weird outlier shooting year. That's the year that I kind of look at the 2023 season, as we'll see.

Was that another 2015 for LeBron? Because last year he couldn't make a damn jump shot to save his life. Was that another 2015? Or was that a beginning of a larger decline for LeBron? We will see. Kind of like what I said was Steph during the regular season two years ago, right? But 2015 was the down year. LeBron shot 33% and effective field goal percentage on jump shots.

Literally shot below 30% overall on jump shots in field goal percentage in that playoff run. But back to normal in 2016, 47%. 2017, 56% effective field goal percentage, 2018, 49%, 20, 50%. So after he fell flat on his face, 47% or better in effective field goal percentage in five of the next six postseason. So he basically took what was a great weakness in his game

through relentless hard work and turned it into, now he's an above average jump shooter. And if you dare him to shoot, he'll beat you just like he did in the 2013 finals. And that's the most important part about it, was it wasn't just that he got better at it. He got to the point where he was confident and comfortable taking jump shots in big moments.

Obviously, like I said, closing out the spurs in 2013 with a jump shot. He had a massive three in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the 2016 finals against the Warriors. And by 2018, and we're going to talk about this later, he just had this ridiculous confidence just coming out of him. Like he just got to his spots and he always felt comfortable and confident rising up into a shot. Completely different than what we said.

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See dkng.com slash football for eligibility, terms, and responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance, eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. Secondly, he developed the most devastating postgame in the league. In 2011, in the playoffs, LeBron made just 19 shots out of the post in that playoff run. Now, in 2012, you saw that change in approach immediately manifest. He scored 35 made field goals in the 2012 playoffs out of the post, almost double in one summer of working on his footwork and working on finishing moves there. By 2014, LeBron had become the very best post player in the entire NBA.

In 2014, among 31 players to run at least 300 post-ups that season, LeBron finished first scoring 1.12 points per possession, including passes. 2015 was the bad year, like I told you guys earlier. 2016, second place out of 19 players to run at least 300 post-ups. 2017, fourth place out of 19 players to run at least 300 post-ups. 2018, first place out of 17 players to run at least 300 post-ups. 2019, he got hurt and he still scored 207 points on 195 post-ups, and then in 2020, getting more towards the end of LeBron's career,

third place out of eight players to run at least 300 post-ups. So he went from a guy who, like, was not comfortable playing with his back to the basket to being maybe the very best at it. And that's what I meant when I said he needed to push himself to the very, to like another level that he wasn't even aware of at the time. He needed to fall flat on his face and be embarrassed to understand the level of work that was required for him to enter into the conversation with people like Michael Jordan. And he did.

The relentless work ethic to fix his jump shot. The relentless work ethic to add footwork and put. polish in the post. He also added a ton of footwork and a polish to his handle to turn himself into a top-tier shot maker. Now, you saw this more in that 2017 to 2020 range, but all of that improvisational creative scoring, all of that touch and adjusted release points and dribble combinations and footwork and stuff that you need to create and make tough jump shots over the top of the defense. LeBron had become one of the best players in the league at that towards the tail end of his prime. And then the last one, like I said earlier,

He had responded to adversity by becoming passive rather than aggressive. You saw that pretty quickly in 2012 when his back was against the wall. So let's get to his first crowning achievement. Winning back-to-back MVP's finals MVP's and a gold medal in 2012 and in 2013. So in 2012, LeBron comes out the gates absolutely blazing. He goes 38 in eight in their first nine games on 60% from the field. go 8 and 1. LeBron finishes the year averaging 27, 8, and 6 on 61% true shooting. First team all NBA, first team all defense, wins the regular season MVP. But riding high going into the playoffs,

Chris Bosch gets hurt in game one of the Pacer series pulls a muscle in his abdomen, and all of a sudden it gets rough. They drop back-to-back games in game two and in game three. They're on the road in Indiana down two games to one facing serious trouble. LeBron drops 40 points, 18 rebounds, and nine assists on the road in game four to tie the series. The heat then regain control the series in advance. But Bosch doesn't come back until game five of the Celtics series and comes off the bench for the rest of the series as a limited version of himself. So the heat find themselves down three games to two on the road in Boston facing serious trouble and LeBron plays one of the very best games of his career, a 45-point masterpiece, just crushing the souls of the Boston faithful and leaving

no hope for victory. I was actually watching Steph's game four against Boston the other day, and all I could think is like, man, Boston's had a rough go of it. Like, they've had some good teams that lost in rather heartbreaking fashion at the hands of superstars in recent years, right? Like between 2010, Kobe, 2012, LeBron, 2008, 2008, 2022, Steph, like it's, it's been pretty rough there. But then in game seven, after he scores 45 to send it to game seven, scores or assists on 15 consecutive points in the fourth quarter to put the Boston Celtics away. If you guys remember, that was the birth of semi-transition LeBron. He started just kind of getting ahead of steam on Paul Pierce from half court and he just could not keep him in front. He had

driving end one, then the driving dunk, and then the driving pass to Chris Bosch in the corner. Those of you guys who were Heat fans at the time will remember that game very well. The 2012 finals were an epic duel between LeBron James and Kevin Durant. But LeBron stole the series in crunch time. In that series, LeBron had 14 points in clutch situations on four for seven from the field compared to Kevin Durant who only had seven points on two for eight shooting in clutch situations in the series. That was basically the difference in the series. The first four games of the series were all very close and all came down to clutch situations.

KD got game one, but in game two, LeBron scores or assists on the last eight, or excuse me, LeBron scores or assists the last eight, I can't talk. In game two, LeBron scores or assists on eight of the last 10 points in the game for the heat. And then in game three, the Thunder are up by one with seven minutes left. LeBron generates every single Miami heat point, except for one-wayed bucket and one, in a 13-8 run that puts Miami up by four with 16 seconds left. They end up going up to one in the series.

And in game four, you guys might remember the cramp game. LeBron hits the biggest shot of the game. Tied at 94 late in the fourth quarter hits a pull-up three at the top of the key that ends up being the go-ahead shot. And then game five was basically a blowout. But you guys get the deal. KD gets game one, game two, game three, game four. LeBron James wins those games in crunch time with slow down half-court shot creation, something that was a weakness for him in the past. And so that was what was kind of cool about that 2011 moment was it was this ugly moment that he immediately, rectified and then came back and basically put forth one of the best redemption stories in NBA history, saving their asses against Indiana, saving their asses against Boston,

and then closing the NBA finals in crunch time against the Oklahoma City Thunder. All right, moving on to the 2012 Olympics that summer. Far and away, the best player on the team. If you guys remember him and Chris Paul both have a bunch of clutch plays down the stretch against Spain as they end up winning the gold medal. This was a crazy stat. LeBron finished the summer of 2012 scoring 77 points on 58 post-ups and ISOs. That's 1.3, 3 points per possession.

That's completely outrageous. Then he goes into 2013. Another summer working on his jump shot, working on his post moves, comes in looking like the best player alive. Now, I want to fast forward to February, specifically February 3rd of 2013. LeBron rips off six consecutive games with at least 30 points on at least 60% shooting from the field. But not only was that a crazy stretch of efficient scoring output,

that also was the first six games of an epic winning streak. The heat ripped off 27 consecutive wins in the spring. The longest streak in NBA history and the longest streak in – excuse me, the second longest streak in NBA history and the longest in modern basketball because the 1972 Lakers were the longest streak with 33 games. Again, 1972, an entirely different era of basketball. so basically the longest winning streak in modern basketball history. LeBron in that winning streak averages 27, 8 and 8 on 58% from the field.

LeBron finishes the season with 27, 7 and 8 on 64% true shooting, makes first team all NBA, first team all defense, wins MVP, and then caps it off with an absolutely epic performance in the 2013 finals, down three games to two at home against San Antonio. Tim Duncan's kicking Chris Bosch's ass. He's got 30 and 17 in game 6. The heat are down by 10 to start the fourth quarter. Facing elimination.

And LeBron just locks in and puts forth yet another incredibly dominant stretch of basketball, generates 20 of the first 22 heat points in the fourth quarter, a 22 to 9 run that leaves the heat up by three late. Now, you guys might remember this is the birth of no headband, LeBron, because he lost his headband and played without it for the rest of that game. But that also was the birth of ball screener LeBron because they started to break out that Mario Chalmers, LeBron, James pick and roll where LeBron was the screener in that specific situation.

We've now seen a lot more of that with LeBron in later years. But then Tony Parker, another guy who was on this list, makes two ridiculous plays, a step-back three in LeBron James' face to tie it, and then this ridiculous turnaround jump shot in the short range over Mario Chalmers to put him up by two with less than a minute left. LeBron has a couple bad turnovers. He gets stripped by Kauai Leonard on a spin move, and then he tries to throw a lob pass to Chris Bosch that is off target, and all of a sudden they're down by five with 28 seconds left, but LeBron hits a three to get it back to two, and then Kauai misses a free throw, and then Ray

Allen hits a three. They go to OT. And then LeBron scores or assists on all three heat buckets in OT, including him himself making the go-ahead shot with less than two minutes left, a little pop shot from about seven feet away. And then Chris Bosch blocks Staney Green in the corner, we're going to game seven. In game seven, LeBron's game complete. comes together. He hits five threes. He goes eight for eight from the free throw line. Really starts picking on Tim Duncan and switches in the fourth quarter, hitting pull-up jump shots in

his face, like using good rhythm combinations to set his rhythm and then rise up and knock down shots. And then he hits the biggest shot of his life, up by two with less than 30 seconds left. The spurs were daring LeBron to shoot, like playing way off. Kauai's guard in LeBron just above the foul line. And so the Spolster has, Mario Charles. come start setting ghost screens at the foul line, right? And essentially the spurs have Tony Parker like hedge and then recover. And LeBron just finds that little gap between Tony Parker's hedge and before Kauai Leonard close out, closes out, and stops and pops from 20 feet on the right elbow,

knocks down the shot, ice is the game, and the Miami Heat win their second consecutive NBA championship. You know, I put in my notes the fist pump because this was something that I remember in the moment was cool as a basketball fan. LeBron makes the jump shot over Kauai that basically wins his second championship. And he walks over to the sideline and you can visibly see him like a lot of LeBron's celebrations over the years are like, you know, normal player celebrations or they're kind of like, you know, talking to it. It's kind of like performative for the crowd in a good way. I mean, like he's a showman, right?

But there was like this private celebration LeBron has where he kind of is looking down and he just kind of pops his hand on his fist like that and says like, come on or something like that. And like you could just tell it was like the physical. manifestation of the emotion of two years of relentless hard work to turn one of his weaknesses into his strength as his strength manifested on the biggest possible stage as he made jump shot after jump shot after jump shot to win the NBA finals when two years ago the Mavericks were daring him to shoot and it was a huge problem in an embarrassing loss. And it was cool to see LeBron kind of had that moment with himself where he got to to see his hard work come to fruition. But anyway, as far as that being his first crowning achievement,

it's hard to find a more dominant two-year stretch in NBA history between the back-to-back, all defenses, first-team all NBA's, MVPs, finals MVP's with a gold medal in the middle. It's hard to do any better than that. LeBron's second crowning achievement, winning a title with the Cleveland Cavaliers. So LeBron goes to Cleveland to play with Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. They start the season not super great. Remember LeBron came in super thin. That was when he was that fish diet all summer. And LeBron was like, oh, I'm going to be quicker now. And he looked like super thin, but he like wasn't moving super well.

Well, it turns out he was having back issues. So he takes a two-week break. He goes off to Miami and rehabs his back. And then when he comes off, it comes back, the Cavs just take off. They immediately rip off a 12-game winning streak. They finished the season 34 and 9 in their last 43 games, which was actually the best record in the NBA over that span, even better than the Warriors over that span.

But if you guys remember, first round series against Boston, Kevin Love gets his arm pulled out of its socket on a questionable play from Kelly Olenick. He's out. Then Kyrie's knee starts bothering him when he's playing. He doesn't look like Kyrie. And then he's missing games in the conference finals. And then finally, in OT of game one of the finals, Clay Thompson bumps knees with him and his knee his knee cap breaks. And then he's out.

And LeBron does his very best to try to get the job done anyway. But the Warriors' talent advantage is just too much in the Cavs Luzin' 6. 2016 was a little weird with the blat-firing, but the Cavs were way more dominant. They got the one seat in the east. They won their first 10 playoff games, and they make it into the NBA finals for a rematch against Golden State, right? Except for at this point, Golden State's even better.

They've won 73 games. Steph is the unanimous MVP, best regular season team in history. They're here to close the deal. And Golden State jumps on them early in the series. Both LeBron and Kyrie don't play well. They fall down three games to one. But then they get their break.

And remember, I went over this two or three days ago, but every NBA championship team catches a break. Just like the 2015 Warriors caught the break and Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, right? The break that the 2016 Cavs caught was Draymond Green get suspended for game five. And LeBron James and Kyrie Irving both play some of the best basketball of their careers.

LeBron plays probably the best three-game stretch of his career. 41, 16, and 7 in game 5 on the road to extend the series. 41, 8, and 11 at home in game 6 to 4, 4, 6. game seven. Then we go to game seven. And it's a road game in Golden State. It's an absolute rock fight. Both teams are playing terribly on offense. Everyone looks shaky. It's super, super physical. But LeBron puts together a really, really impressive rock fight, you know, half-court execution performance down the stretch of this game. Starts in the third quarter, it's like a tough little baseline fade away over Sean Livingston. Then he starts the fourth quarter

with another driving floater, kind of like a half hook over his left shoulder against Sean Livingston. Then he makes this unbelievable driving bank shot on Harrison Barnes where kind of rips through the left and he elevates from about the semicircle and kind of floats in the air and double pumps and then banks it in off the glass with one hand, just a ridiculous shot. That little right-handed bank shot on the left side of the basket became a big shot for LeBron towards the tail end of his career. But then after that, he starts picking on Festus Zizeli on switches. And you'll, you'll, you guys will probably remember this sequence where LeBron gets Festus on the switch, he pump fakes, Festus jumps, shoots into him, draws the foul, makes all three free throws.

Very next possession gets Festis on another switch. This time Festis doesn't want to contest because he doesn't want to foul. Now LeBron just rises up and shoots the three, knocks it down, now they're up by two. But Clay Thompson ties the game, and we go into classic rock fight basketball. For almost four minutes, no one scores. You know, like Steph's missing shots, LeBron's missing shots, no one's able to score. But then Kyrie does this kind of like pullover dribble floater that he misses long off the glass. And the long rebound sparks a two-on-one fast break with Stefan Andre Aguadala.

LeBron James is out of the play trailing on the left side. And he runs harder than he's ever run in his life. It makes the most unbelievable defensive play in NBA history rising up to block Andre Aguadala and keep the game alive, stopping that one easy layup that would have broken the dam. an 89-89-89 game. Then LeBron misses, Steph misses. Call a timeout. LeBron selflessly understands he's out of rhythm and he's tired and he points over at

Kyrie Irvin. Kyrie Irving gets the shot, gets Steph Curry on a switch, makes a step back three, the rest is history. And you know what was cool about that one is you could just tell that one meant more for LeBron than all the others. It's funny because the 2020 championship, you look back and like, that was a super important championship for LeBron's legacy, right? Like he, that puts him, like, in that, you know, three to six with MJ, it's like, dude, you can't even have that conversation. Four to six with all

the longevity stuff, like LeBron fans have been making that case for years now since 2020, right? That's not a case I make, but it's a case that a lot of people make. That's a very important championship for LeBron's legacy. LeBron's reaction to that was different. Like, it was kind of, you know, classic LeBron, like confident LeBron. Like, it's a cigar smoke on Instagram. Instagram up in smoke tour, I just busted everyone's ass, let him know what it is. Right? Like, it was a cool moment, but nothing was like what that Cavs championship was like. You could tell it meant something to him on a level emotionally that nothing else that he had

accomplished in his career meant. Final crowning achievement. I'm referring to this as LeBron's total mastery of the game. Now, it was totally wasted on an incredibly limited roster with the 2018 Cavs. Remember, Kyrie Irving demands a trade. At the time, there's all this conversation. it's like, oh, did LeBron push Kyrie out? Now we know in retrospect that was stupid because this was just the first of like six different Kyrie crazy outburst saga ridiculousness,

you know, classic Kyrie behavior, right? But the trade backfires on the Cavs because Isaiah Thomas ends up hurting his hip and not looking like the same player. They flip him for some more role players and they just didn't really have any shot to win, right? They have real trouble with Indiana in the first round. They have real trouble with Boston in the conference finals. But I think this was the very best version of LeBron James and quite possibly the very best basketball player we've ever seen. In fact, I think if I had to pick one specific version of one basketball player, I would pick 2018 LeBron as the best basketball player that I've ever seen. He is 46 and 12 on the Pacers in game two.

44, 10, and 8 in the game saving block on Victor Oladipo and a game winning buzzer beater in game 5. 45, 8, and 7 in game 7 when facing elimination to beat the Pacers. Then we go into the Toronto series where the Raptors are favored and they're the one seat in the east. He hits the game tying shot, a fadeaway over OG and and Nobby on the right block that sends the game to OT in game 1 where the Cavs win. Then in game 2, 43, 8, and 14 assists completely sucks the life out of the entire Toronto organization, coaching staff, team, and fan base by just hitting this ridiculous line of turnaround fadeaway jump shots, every single one of them, just you could hear the crowd going like, oh my God, he made it again, right? Again, complete and total mastery of the game. We're not even close to being done with this list, by the way. Game three at home,

Toronto somehow finds the will to keep fighting. LeBron hits a running one-legged floater at the buzzer to put them up three games to none. The audacity to take a running one-legged floater in a situation like that, finish the game with 38.6 rebounds and seven assists. Then we go to the Boston series. 44 points on 61% true shooting in game 4 to tie the series at 2. 46 points, 11 rebounds, and 9 assists in game 6 to tie the series at 3. This is where he hit the back-to-back pull-up 3s in Jason Tatum's face to ice the game. Then a masterful, 35, 15, and 9 in game 7 on the road, another absolute rock fight

to once again crush the hearts of Celtics fans and improbably send the calves to the finals. And this story culminates with game 1 of the, 2018 NBA finals, quite possibly the greatest basketball game any player has ever played. You were heading into this ridiculous series, right, where it's like the most talented roster ever assembled in the 2018, you know, 2017, 2018 Warriors, right? But still more or less the same guys. And they're like, ESPN's like showing these promos and they're ridiculous because it's like Steph and Katie and Clay Thompson.

And over here it's like LeBron James, Tristan Thompson and Kyle Corver. And you're like, this is completely ridiculous, right? Like these guys have no chance. but LeBron pours in 51 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists, including what should have been the game winner over Steph Curry with 50 seconds left. But, bizarrely on the other end of the floor, the Cavs draw a charge. I think it was LeBron who drew the charge, if I remember correctly, but the Cavs draw a charge on Kevin Durant.

They call it a charge, and then they overturn it, which at the time was unheard of because they didn't have coaches challenges at that point. They overturn it. KD gets two free throws. LeBron goes down again and makes another go-ahead shot, a driving layup, up and under a, like, nifty layup. And then Steph Curry gets the driving and one to put them up one. LeBron hits George Hill on the cut, makes the first free throw, misses the second.

We have the J.R. Smith play. Things fall apart in OT, and all of it ends in a loss, unfortunately. But that 51, 8, and 8 was probably very well could have been the best individual performance in a single NBA finals game in the history of the NBA. The rest of the series, though, the Warriors just throw the kitchen sink at LeBron. they pick him up full cord. They start doubling him everywhere. He averages an efficient 28, 9, and 11 in the final three games of the series,

but it does end in a sweep. That lack of talent certainly was never going to be enough to overcome the most talented roster in NBA history with the KD Steph Warriors. LeBron finished that playoff run averaging 34 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists on 62% true shooting. He had 10, 35 plus point games, 8, 40 plus point games, and a 50 point game. 47 points in clutch situations on 50% from the field and 40% from three, two game-winning buzzer-beaters,

and yet another trip to the NBA finals with a team that had no business being there. Michael Jordan may be the greatest player that ever played when we look at the big picture of his career, but I've never seen a better basketball player in 2018, LeBron. He had completely mastered the game. He had no weaknesses, and he was completely unguardable. I'll finish it off with a quote from Steve. after game one of the NBA finals.

They have a guy who's playing basketball at a level that I'm not sure anyone's ever seen before. End quote. I'm not going to do a what if with LeBrona. I'm just going to finish it up with this. I understand that LeBron is the most polarizing player ever. He does a lot of stuff that rubs people the wrong way. He can be dramatic.

He can be passive aggressive. I understand why some people don't like it. And there are sometimes when I'm watching him and I'm like, that's kind of annoying, right? But what he's done and what he's still doing is not normal. And we may never see anything like him again. So we're getting close to the end here, guys. Like he's going into his 21st season. We saw his first significant playoff decline last year.

So I just enjoy it while it lasts, even if you dislike the guy. Like, we literally might not see this again. It could be decades. So just as a basketball fan, enjoy this while it lasts. I think people are taking LeBron for granted a little bit. All right, before we get out of here, I got three mailback questions for you guys. First one's from Wesley. How is Kobe higher than Steph in your last 25-year list, but not in your all-time list?

No idea where you got that from. I had Kobe above Steph in this list. And then in my top perimeter players of all time, it's LeBron, excuse me, MJ, LeBron, Kobe, magic, Steph, Bird. So I have Steph at fourth. So I'm not sure where that got confused, but I just. just wanted to clarify that. Second one, from Shane, what do you think of Chris Finch saying in JJ's Reddick's podcasts, analytics are guides, not gods?

You guys have heard me say this before, but I look at basketball as an art, not a science. I don't think anyone's ever right or wrong about anything when we're talking about basketball analysis because it's completely open for interpretation. There's too many moving parts. Like I said, it's an art, not a science. It's not like playing a game of war with cards where you drew a four and I drew a three so you win. That's not how it works. Like, there is so much open for interpretation.

The only thing that is clearly scientific is the final score between two teams. Right. Like, there's no doubt that the Denver Nuggets won the NBA championship last year. Everything about the basketball intricacies about how that happened are open to interpretation. You'll have Nuggets fans that think Yokic was the, you know, played the best basketball anyone's ever played. a bunch of role players. You'll have people that think it was an incredibly talented roster. And there are still people out there who don't think Yokic is the best player in the world,

which I disagree with, but there are people who feel that way. And you can't prove it one way or another because there's too many moving parts. Even when it comes to the world of analytics, it's like that. Like, I've talked to you guys about this before, but I really like using points per possession on different play types to evaluate players, right? Like ISOs and post-ups and pick and rolls. But even then, you know, are you in a weak Eastern conference? that year, or you know, weak Western conference that year? You know, what about, um, uh, what about the overall makeup of your team? Are you running pick and rolls with a, uh, uh, role man that has bad hands and struggles to catch and make plays? Are you running picking roles with, uh, not a lot of

weak side shooting? You know, like if I, if I, you picked up a, uh, uh, you know, let's just take, let's just take LeBron, for example, for today, you know, if I took him and I dropped him into the two thousand, 22 sons, where he's playing with Mikhail Bridges. and Cam Johnson on the weak side, or dead-eye three-point shooters, and DeAndre Aten, a role man who catches and finishes everything, and a legit backup ball handler and Chris Paul, so he doesn't have to do everything on every single possession.

Like, I would imagine his points per possession would be higher than it would be if he was on the 2022 Lakers with Russell Westbrook and a bunch of dysfunction, right? So even as we look at specifics and really refined and narrow data, it doesn't tell the full story. And so how do we expect to use this? these sorts of things, it's just a tool. It's just in further context. You should never watch something in a game and reach an opinion without checking the numbers and just seeing how they

influence that. You should never see a number and not check the footage to see if there's not something you're missing there. Everything goes hand in hand. The eye test isn't perfect. The data is not perfect. I do think the eye test is more accurate than the data because if you understand what you're seeing, you can actually see that art and you can interpret that art. I think that sometimes the data puts people in a position where they don't see the bigger picture. But at the end of the day, like, I think any goal to try to turn basketball into a science is doomed to failure, and that this data is best used as a supplement to us actually watching the games. Last mailback question from Jamario.

We know you always, we know you always talk in basketball, but do you watch any football or keep up with football? I do. Football is a very important sport in my family. family. Both of my brothers played in college. My little brother was a very, very good college football player. He was a two-time team captain at West Point as a middle linebacker and is one of their all-time leading tacklers there. I was fortunate to be living in Charlotte when that was happening, so I got to travel around and watch him play a lot. Always been a big NFL fan. My family, my entire extended family lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so I'm a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. It's been a tradition to my family

forever to go out to Texas for Thanksgiving and watch the Cowboys game on Thanksgiving Day. I'm a big Tony Romo fan. A lot of Cowboys fans didn't like him. I was always a big Tony Romo fan. Here's the thing. Over the last two or three years, I've really poured my heart and soul into basketball because I've really wanted to make this dream of mine a reality, the dream of getting to talk about basketball for a living.

And I'm very, very fortunate to be in this position now. but I literally poured my heart and soul into it. And so I didn't watch as much football as I wanted to. And I have become a more casual fan. That said, one of my big picture goals is to have a podcast where I can talk about anything, including football, obviously with a basketball focus. And part of my process in that department is to watch more football starting this year. And I did watch the entire game last night.

The pick six obviously was a huge game changer in that particular game. Watching Patrick Mahomes try to make plays without his skill players was certainly an adventure. The Detroit Lions' offensive line was super impressive. The push they were getting on every single play was super impressive. I have a general understanding of the way the game works. I played in high school. I wasn't very good, but I played in high school and I followed the game my whole life. But the big thing is, if I want to talk about it on this show, I need to get smarter about it.

And so it might take a year or two, maybe more, for me to get to the point where I feel comfortable talking about it more in this format. And so I'm kind of doing that now. Thankfully, I've gotten more efficient with my time as it pertains to covering the NBA. Like, I've just gotten more efficient with it. So I have more time available to me now, and I plan on using that to watch and learn more about football. But it'll be a couple years before I cover it in any sort of professional capacity. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. I hope you guys enjoy your weekend.

We're back on Monday with our season previews. And just so you guys know, we're going to be hitting on 20 teams this year. So starting Monday, we'll go Monday through Friday, 20 through 16, Monday through Friday, 15 through 11, so on and so forth. But we're going to get to hit on two-thirds of the league. So chances are if your team is relevant, you're going to get a season preview video done. Very, very excited to dive into this particular season. Very, very excited to get back to games.

I, these lists have been fun looking back, but man, we've been doing them now for what, six weeks. I'm ready to get, look into the future now. Volume. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

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