The Ringer NBA Show - What Does It Take to Win the All-Time Scoring Title? | The Answer

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Kyle and Seerat get together to celebrate LeBron James's legacy on the cusp of him overtaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA's all-time scoring leader. They talk about when they first became aware of LeBron, and discuss how he was able to navigate extreme fan-base expectations and media scrutiny to get to this historic point (4:45). They then dig into many of the key chapters and moments of his career, and the personal adjustments he made to stay healthy for so long (18:30). They end the pod by assessing his current state with the Lakers and speculating on his future (59:33). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Seerat Sohi Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz and Conor Nevins *The Ringer NBA squad is coming to Salt Lake City for NBA All-Star Weekend! Get your tickets here!* Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's popping, everybody? This is Logan Murdoch from Real On I have some big news to share. On Saturday, February 18th, the Ringer NBA show will be hitting the road for All-Star weekend for a live show in Salt Lake City. You heard that right. We are taping the pod in front of a live audience in Salt Lake next month and we want you to join us. Pull up on us at the stateroom in the heart of downtown Salt Lake. You can grab your tickets now at thestateroom.com. That's the stateroom.com. Doors open at 9 o'clock. Show is at 10. It's going to be a 21 and up event. come hang with the gang and chat midseason updates draft preview and even have a Q&A with us space is limited so grab your tickets while they last at the state room dot com or click the link in the description of this show hope to see y'all in there everyone and welcome into the answer i'm sirate so he i'm joined as always by the sweetest sounds on the podcast airwaves j kyleman here to join us james kyleman here to talk about one lebron james who is about to who is who's on the heels of breaking the scoring record, he is 117 points away. He is currently at 38,271 points, which is a number that I personally am having a hard time wrapping my head around. Kyle, how about you? How are you doing?

I'm doing well. I mean, yeah, LeBron is, I know, I know we always say like, you know, KOC has the like, don't take LeBron for granted. He's just been in our lives for so long that maybe the magnitude of this, I almost feel like we need to do one of those cartoon like snap out of it. Like this is incredible. Like what we're seeing is so incredible. And I guess to speak to you and to set up the pod today to sort of piggyback off of what you said, we kind of want to examine that point total and just talk about how you get there. How do you do that?

Because if you compare it with somebody like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who played in a different era, I brought this up in our NBA summit meeting back in like September. When was that? September 12th. Boom. I just pulled a LeBron. Yeah, you did. Get that memory.

The recall. Yeah. Yeah, Iman Shumpur made a back cut, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was talking about just how it was different. You know, Kareem had a different path. He played four years, but sat out his freshman year at UCLA, as you had to do back in those days. And then came in a little older and played a different thing, you know, got his points in a different way. And I think today what we want to kind of dissect a little bit

is just the timeline of the adjustments that LeBron made and the other factors that went into how we're at this point this far into his career. What year are we 20? Or we're in, I mean... It's 2023. Another LeBron James moment I just had. Yes. Yes. So we're trying to just sort of like get to the bottom of like how he got there and just shed some light on that, I guess. Yeah, it's honestly, as this as he comes up on the frontier of this of breaking the scoring record it is just incredibly difficult to capture the enormity of the moment that we're in I think we all can feel it you know we can feel that there's this sense of I feel at least like this simultaneous I guess gratitude to be able to experience this moment

alongside also a reckoning with my own mortality as you go back to these games you remember where you were when they happened and life was very different than life was very different for all of us. I think that's the thing when you watch a player for so long. Like they grow up obviously, but you are also growing up alongside them. Every time I think about Luca's, you know, playoff performance or every time I think about Steph dropping, you know, 50 in the garden, I just, I just step back and I think about how I'm marching towards the grave. That's what I think about. Yeah, yeah.

You weren't really existential. We're not all ageless wonders like LeBron. Unfortunately, we have, I feel a lot. You know, my ankles, my knees are not exactly where they used to be. But I also don't spend over it. Did you know that LeBron spends over a million years on his health, Kyle? Have you, I mean, the dollars on his health? I think I saw that trending on Twitter at one point.

You know, you bring up a good point here as like milestones, like remember where you were type things. I was going to ask you when do you, I mean, you're younger than me. You got into basketball in a different, we obviously had different lives that weren't exactly. the same. And to say, put it mildly, I think that like, she's laughing now. We are different people who have different experiences, different consciousness. When do you remember first becoming aware of LeBron? I like to, I like to ask people these kinds of things. Well, I was, I was aware of LeBron after he got into the league. I didn't really, I didn't watch basketball when I was super young. I don't know, probably like 2005 or something. Probably like,

playing the pistons, I'd imagine. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what it was. I think it was probably that, like, actually, no, I would say it was when he, yeah, 2005, that year ago, 2005, 2006, probably when he first got into playoffs. Okay. It's probably when I was first made aware of LeBron James. I didn't pay attention to anything going on in basketball until that point, usually. Yeah. We had this, our local paper when I was growing up was called the Spencer Magnet.

If anybody really remotely gives a shit about that if you were worried about the detail there. Well, there was this like, we had this like AP thing that like this one guy wrote for a bunch of local papers. And early hoops internet, that's how I would often find out names about things. But I remember, I remember when he was like a freshman or a sophomore like St. Vincent's, so this would have been like 2000, 2001. I read something about they were like, okay, O'Kill Academy played St. Vincent's, which I used to like follow. O'Kill was like the big thing. It was the Montverd of the time. Like a lot of NBA players came through there.

They're still good. They're still good now. But back then they were the show. And I remember they were like this teen, this like 15, 14 year old scored like 35 on O'Kill Academy, which was definitely like a eyes emoji moment, like for the time. And so I remember thinking like, okay, seeing his name for the first time. And then it sort of evolved to the point where, I mean, he was the number one sophomore in his class. I sent you that thing, Scoop.

Scoop Jackson was a guy that wrote for Slam back in the day, and he wrote like prospect-driven things. And then there was this documentary there that was about Lenny Cook at the time, and there was this moment. I think LeBron's first sort of like seismic, this dude's here moment, was when he beat Lenny Cook. Lenny Cook was like considered the top player in his class. And when LeBron James comes in and just smokes him in this ABCD camp moment,

he puts himself on the radar, but then Rick Petino was in this documentary saying like he was the best high school player he'd ever seen. So he was on the radar firmly is what I was going to say. And so he had quite the reputation coming in. And I think that that speaks to how amazing this is, is that there were evaluators at that time saying like if everything goes right for this guy, if everything plays out correctly for this guy, he could be the best of all time, which is a fucking crazy thing to say about a 15 year old. And to think that he did it, Cyril, like to think that he like, absorbed that expectation and prepared for it the entire way is really, really remarkable.

I really think he's like, Jordan didn't face that. The guys that came before him didn't face that in the social media era. I think that the gravity of that and the way to that is really astounding, honestly. No one has faced that. I don't think anyone will face it afterwards because we also learned from LeBron James, James experience, that you might not necessarily want to do that to somebody. We just, I think we're different. Like the social media landscape, like the media landscape in general has become a little bit more self-aware in that way, too, like, hey, what does it actually mean to put this immense amount of pressure onto a teenager?

Like, we kind of think about those things now. Do you think we've come off of that? Do you think we've come off of that, though? Do you think that, like, we've learned our lesson? I don't know. Wimby. Maybe it's unavoidable. Maybe on some level it's unavoidable, right?

But I would say, I think we're a little bit better about it now. I was to say I'm culpable. I like put in my video that like, hey, Wimby has like gifts that no human has ever had and that like he, you know, I don't know. I don't know that we've learned. Maybe I'm, I haven't learned, I guess. Maybe we're both projecting. Yeah. I don't know what I don't know what else you could do differently other than to say like this person could do it.

But the point is that like once those expectations are set, you're going to criticize that person on those expectations for their whole career. So like if Wimby flames out, we're going to be like, man, he's not on pace. He's not on pace to do this or not on pace to do that. Which is exactly what we've done with LeBron. We continue to do with LeBron. Yeah. He's invited in our defense. But you were going to say something about when you first heard about him, I think, at the beginning of this? No, no, I was going to move off of it. But since you gave me the segue here, you want to know how I first heard about O'Kill. Yes. I'm dying to hear about this. Yes. There was an episode or a plot line in One Tree Hill. Do you watch One Tree Hill? No.

There was a plot line in One Tree Hill where Nathan, who was like this, he was this process. He was a high school basketball player. The show was basically centered around his relationship with Lucas, his half brother. And Nathan was kind of like the guy who from like the more privileged side of the tracks. He actually grew up around his father, who like pretty much didn't like act like Lucas, Lucas didn't exist until Lucas became a good basketball player, but his dad put this enormous amount of pressure on Nathan pretty much throughout the entire show to like become an NBA player and maximize his career and all that stuff. And it was kind of about that father-son relationship.

And there was a moment where because Nathan's dad, Dan was kind of feuding with the local high school coach about Nathan's role, he was threatening to send Nathan to O'Kill. And that's how I found out about O'Kill. And Steve Smith would have coached him up right. Yeah. But it was an interesting moment in like the journey of a high school basketball prospect and having like the opportunity to, you know, in a moment of adversity where you're not really seeing eye to eye with your coach, you have an opportunity to potentially jump ship and go somewhere else and be in this program where I don't know. I don't know how I would have gone for him. I don't know anything about O'Kill or how things go. But I've heard things about how things used to go at Montvord, which I heard it's improved a lot in the last few years.

things used to go very much in the side of the players at Marlbord. So, you know, there's, there's that it's, it's, it's just, you know, it's, that's, it's, that's probably the one thing that's very different about the, the, the high school basketball environment now, uh, then when LeBron was playing. I think LeBron was probably maybe the only player that would have that type of leverage in, in his era. Um, but now that is very different. And I'm not even saying that to be like, oh, look at all these players now, all these things that they get to, like, they get to shirk, uh, accountability. Because I think it when you're a teenager,

major, anybody would, you know, look for the opportunity to do that. And it doesn't really end up serving them later on their life. It's actually, it's actually quite unfortunate for them, even if it doesn't seem like that in the moment. Yeah. Speaking of like high school basketball on shows, did you ever watch hang time on NBC? Did you ever see that show? Hang time. Friends, Hornet, like, you watch Hang Time. Jump in here. Did you ever watch me and my friends at Hang Time? You never watched that? You know, you never heard of that show? You know what, Kyle? I've never even heard of this show. show, but I do want to hear the rest of the theme song.

I think maybe he can keep singing. We'll all remember it. Yeah, it's like the Lobowski head in the toilet. Let me give it one more look. I think Kobe Bryant had a cameo on that show, but it's absurd. I'm sure it's on YouTube, where they would do these segments where they were clearly shooting on like Walmart adjustable goals, like in some big space. It was a terrible show.

But the Kobe cameo is interesting. Anyway, this is all digression about early LaBased. We were talking about when we first saw him. I went to LeBron's fifth game in the league. I went inside. I drove up to when he came into league, I was graduating high school. Some girl came and it was like, hey, do you want these Pacers tickets? Because she knew I was a miserable basketball fanatic.

And we went and LeBron had a big game. I mean, he was impactful from moment one. Hold up, hold up, hold up. Before we get into the game, before we get into the game. Some girl. No, she didn't go with me. I don't, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't, I wasn't, uh, Rizzy. at that point of my life or at any point,

Sirid, I know you got that grin on your face. I think I just went with a couple of my buddies and we had a great time. It was fun. Are you guys friends? Friendly. Yeah, friendly. Yeah, so I think she got him from her dad's work or something.

But it amazed me that like... W-Ris for sure. Well, I don't know what that means. But I think we went and he had a big game. Sagana Jop had a basket. I think of the buzzer that didn't count. The Pacers won. The Pacers were good back then.

But you actually don't. And you were watching LeBron's first game. What did you glean from that? Yeah. Well, you know, I think trying to capture all of this, I don't think that there's a better place that you can start, but the start. It's just,

it's just, I don't know, like, it was, first of all, it was 20 years ago. I think we just, like, I was looking at the day, it's October 29th, 2003. That was his rookie debut. What were you? How old were you? You're in high school. What were you? Like, what was Kyle like back then? 18, probably moody about something stupid, I would say, finishing my ho-hum basketball career. I was laughing too that...

Trying to dunk a basketball, actually. Yeah, I was coming off screens and wearing a Haynes beefy tea. And, you know, if I missed the threes, I'd come out because I couldn't fucking guard anybody. And I didn't understand at the time why my coaches were frustrated with me. I was just like, hey, man, I shoot 30% from three on, you know, whatever. But I was laughing at that clip of Jabari Smith Jr. saying, you know, you played against my dad and your rookie. Did you see that?

Yeah. I found that hilarious. Yeah. Yeah, it was really funny. Yeah, one of those markers of time. But yes, this game, his rookie debut was against Sacramento Kings at what was then the Arco Arena. Another marker of time passed.

And I actually didn't watch this game live. I was nine years old. So I was probably. I don't know. I just don't know where I was doing at 9. I was probably like playing my guitar or something like that. I have no idea. It's probably just starting.

I don't think I even played basketball. And then I was like, I was like this soccer player that was like rebelling against my father who wanted me to be very, very good at soccer. Not too much in a Dan, Nathan way, but kind of in a Dan, Nathan way.

So, you know, we, we nipped that in the bud and I started playing basketball. But yes, well, let's talk about LeBron now. Let's talk about LeBron.

This was a fascinating game to go back and watch. I'd recommend anybody just as a basketball fan go back and watch this game. But the biggest takeaways that I had from watching it were just that LeBron's game is essentially the same back then as it was now. The foundation had already been set. It was like a classic LeBron James stat line, 25 points, I think nine rebounds and five assists, or it could have been nine, the rebounds and assists flip the other way I don't have in front of me anymore. But you guys get the point.

It was a very typical LeBron James performance. And we got that pretty much in his first game. His first play he ever made was an assist. Very fitting. Perfect. Poetic, I might even say. And the next three were baseline jumpers. And it was that classic LeBron James like turnaround lefty baseline jumper, although he was kind of

dribbling into them back then. He didn't have a post-up game, which we'll talk about later. Like, he developed all that stuff. But that was a shot that I think, I think that's a defining shot for LeBron. I think that's a very defining shot for LeBron. I think when I, like, when we talk about some of the moments later on, like Celtics in 2012, just killing the Raptors in 2018 and like all these other moments. That lefty baseline jumper is just maybe the most memorable non-dunk LeBron shot. And he's also crushing it in transition as well. And actually, Greg Popovich was, was, was, was, was, was, the spurs were in, uh, were in LA, uh, last week. And pop mentioned something interesting. He said that still to this day, the most dangerous part of LeBron's game is transition. And we like, like that game also featured his first transition dunk. And it was just so, I was talking to, I was talking to my, my friend Claire, who, uh, Clare, Clare MLPS on, on, on, on, on Twitter, who is

who is a musician who is also now starting to write about basketball stuff. So you guys should check her out. She's doing some really fun stuff. But we were talking about how there is this murmur of anticipation every single time LeBron gets the ball in transition. You know exactly what's about to happen. Like it's almost like we've been conditioned now to expect him to do something fantastic at the second he has the ball.

And the whole arena is like kind of like just waiting for it. There's this sort of like four or five seconds of dead. space essentially and it's really fun to just be a part of and we saw that immediately like it was it was a king's game it was like he was on the road but the second he got the ball in transition he got I think he stole the ball from Doug Christie which wow mark it's a lot of markers of time today yeah Jalani McCoy on the Kings another marker of time that one's before your time I yes transition transition yeah just that is still the most dangerous part of his game which is all to say that the foundation of his game was set at pretty much by the time he got into the least

league, which is of course one of the reasons that he's able to break this record. He was scoring all these points already, right? Um, like you go back to these games and it's like, you know, youngest to 3,000 points, youngest to 4,000 points. We all know this stuff. But the thing that really, you know, struck me was the fact that this is a guy who has really, really evolved with the times. His game has changed, you know, through basically two eras of basketball. There's been the three point revolution. Um, and just a whole bunch of stuff. that's happened and he has while adapting to that

maintained the general foundation of his game. And that's kind of what I want to explore today. Like the just kind of like dichotomy of that. The two sort of, because they play against each other, right? Like we have this idea that he's adapted to change his entire career, but also there are parts of his game

that have just essentially stayed the same. What do you see as the foundation though? You keep saying that but I want you to I want you to flesh it out tangibly. What do you see as the foundation of LeBron's game? Like in that first game, what have you seen ripple out over the course of his career, in your opinion? I would say the biggest thing in that first game is playmaking. Yeah. But actually, the thing that he built in his second year is the one thing that I think has really stood the test of time

and has been basically like probably, I imagine maybe if you asked him about his approach to basketball, ball, he might say something along the lines of always trying to get to the rim. That started in his second year, actually. He didn't do a great job of getting to the rim in his first year, but he was only shooting 44% at the rim. And those numbers progressively went up his entire career, but he was actually trying to get to the rim all the time. And everything that he built around his game after that feels like it was in order to

address the counters that were presented to him that were stopping. him from getting to the rim. But Kurt Goldsbury actually has this great stat from an article that he wrote in 2018 where he says that LeBron has gotten into the paint, has more points in the paint than anyone in this century. That was from a 2018 article. And I imagine, you know, the last two years he hasn't gotten to the rim that's the same amount. But that kind of is a testament to when he was in his total athletic prime, that was his goal. And everything else in his game was sort of built around getting to the rim. Yeah, he had more, like, and I think, if you wanted to, like, dig in and say, like,

okay, why? You know, and you look at, like, I personally think that you're talking about getting to the rim. In transition, yes, I agree. I was going to ask you, I think, I know I'm a little, like, more nerdy or nerdy and tedious about, like, historical stuff, but, like, I can't, like, I know in terms of, like, passing in the open court, you know, magic obviously has a crazy reputation. We've had a lot of great athletes over the year.

If you're an athlete, you're going to be good in transition. But I think Janice and LeBron are probably the two best transition players that I've ever seen. And I think a big part of that is, A, the just overall physical power to, like, he can drive through people's chest. He also has, like, lower body flexibility. Like his lower body power and stability, but also flexibility, that's kind of an overlap between those two guys. It's interesting you were talking about. And he still had the power, maybe the flexibility, is taking a little bit of a dip as, he's gotten into his Lakers years, his little bit later.

I think that's one of the big things about him that's so difficult to stop. And, you know, his finishing bag is obviously like really evolved over the years too. Yeah, that's probably been, I think, I think like anybody, if you ask to coach, like, that's the one thing you don't want is LeBron in transition. And then like you build out from all these other LeBron possibilities that you don't want. But the way that his game evolved, I think, was turning those things that you could live with into things that you no longer wanted to live with or that at least like a lot of the times he was going to come out with an advantage, right?

Like moving on to when he gets into the playoffs, I think that's, that is a signal shift for LeBron and I think I think shows us part of why he's been able to do this. Watching some of these playoff games, the first thing you notice is that the court just looks a little bit different. He has more shooters around him. This is like we get into the era of him basically making the careers of Larry Hughes and Boobie Gibson. And more importantly, I think it's the birth of LeBron James, the problem solver.

His playoff debut against the Wizards. Now, you mentioned this, but I'm going to take it right now. He's only missed a playoff three times in his career. That's incredible. And it also speaks to the fact that he has been playing all these minutes and has scored all these points that aren't part of this record at all. Yeah. He is, he's still.

like he's still behind Kareem, I think, in, in playoff total minutes, but it puts him ahead of Malone, and Malone still is ahead of him in regular season minutes. So that's, that's incredible. Yeah, he's, these floor raising players really have a way of doing this. I like a, I crude, like a thing one time where I was talking about like Stockton, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, between the three of them, they'd miss the playoffs like four total times. And I just think like solid stewardship, you know, even if you're not like somebody that's a flashy, like passing manipulator, like just if you have high, like a high baseline of quality decision making, you're automatically going to be in a good spot to be a play. I don't think we're seeing some of that from Luca going. I just wanted to tack on this stat because I pulled this up and this blew my mind. Talking about longevity and productivity. LeBron has been in eight game sevens in his career and he's six and two in those games with averages of 35 points essentially and almost 46 minutes. And each one. So this is a guy that can, like, carry a heavy, heavy load and the toughest, you were talking about problem solveries, like, that's, that is the proof that you're a problem

solver. If you can carry that kind of load and be efficient, uh, and drawing 13 free throw tips for game, 5.6 assists and, and almost 10 rebounds. Those are the toughest most grinding moments for a basketball player that can prove like whether your shit works basically. If your shit can work there, you know, it's kind of like if you're funny, you can, you can kill it at Madison Square Guard. And for, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, Like, do your thing on the highest level. LeBron has proven that he's done that. But this problem-solving thing is interesting to me,

because you were talking about, I think the first time that one of, when I think about the eras of LeBron, the most fun era for me, I think, was that era of like 05 to 07-ish, where it was like, we knew it was going to happen, but then it was like, okay, they know LeBron's coming and he's still doing it. I think it was like that 06 series against Y, Washington. I vividly have like a where you were moment. I remember I had like a big fight with like a

girlfriend at the time, I think, because I was trying to watch that Wizards game and it was in a dorm. And I remember it was like a fight was sort of like happening. And I remember just being like, I'm watching this fucking game. And I remember I left. And it was one of those like get back here. I don't even know why I'm sharing this. But I definitely, I like went back to my dorm to finish watching this. Because LeBron was that incredible. He was just so powerful and so skilled. But continued the LeBron problems. Do you remember?

No, no. Do you remember what you were fighting about? You're going to pry on the fighting thing. I do it. I don't. I don't remember what it was. But I do remember just blinders on trying to finish watching that game because it was so special. And me getting to see him on live to you, he wasn't that normal either at the time, considering, you know, the league pass.

It's way more normal to see throwaway games today than it was back then. That's very true. I think that's part of the reason we kind of remember some of like the highlight LeBron games. I imagine, you know, I think if we reflect on maybe Luca Donch it 20 years from now, it's going to be like, yeah, I was, you know, on league pass. And he was, you know, there was this game against, I don't know, like, I think, I mean, he's just kind of a point of viewing no matter who he plays. But, you know, I was trying to think of a team. I'm like, it was a Hawks. It was a Nuggets.

I'm like, no, that could also be on ESPN. Like, all these games could be on ESPN. It's way more normal to that. It's going to feel different when we do this later. But, you know, I think, yeah, just like that era of LeBron, in my in my wormhole, I obviously went back and watched game five against the Pistons in 2007. Probably the moment that he kind of entered the main stage in terms of like this guy could now be in the running for the best player on the planet. It was an incredible performance. It went to double overtime.

But the thing that really stuck out to me was the way that the Pistons like went. And another game that everyone should just go and watch. These are all on YouTube too. Like these aren't just like empty, empty invitations or recommendations. These are, the NBA has done a pretty good job of documenting these. Like they're on their YouTube channels. I'd recommend it. I have to say, I think Free Dawkins has probably done the best job, to be honest.

Because he also like keeps like the post game interviews and stuff. I really like the stuff that Free Dawkins chooses to keep. but yeah he yeah so lebron against a pistons he goes on this scoring barge in the first half of the game he was an unstoppable barge of scoring so i'm gonna we'll circle it back and i'll defend you thank you

thank you Kyle but i know what you mean i know what you mean like that was his ahead of schedule moment you know i feel like every every superstar young team and every superstar has that moment where we're like wait a minute, they shouldn't be here now. And I feel like that was his. Like Jordan's huge, the 63 point game against the Celtics. You know, those moments are really fun. I feel like we're.

Yeah, definitely. It's like a preview of what's to come, but it's also already here sometimes, you know? And yeah, so the Pistons in the second half, they start trapping him. They start trying to get him to give up the ball. But he's A, so methodical and B so strong that he can stave off that pressure. and we always know that he was able to make the right decision with the basketball. And, you know, this isn't like, we are, we are seeing him spray out to some of the shooters for sure. But the big thing I think is just he keeps, he keeps just spamming Bigsy with these layups.

Like every time they try to trap, he's either beating the trap and then using his strength to barrel into the next guy, which put a pin in that. And he just finds a way to beat them, essentially, right? So then by the fourth quarter, the pistons are like, screw this. We got to go back to one-on-one coverage. And the last two plays of the fourth quarter for LeBron, he basically gets to walk to the rim on layups because Rip Hamilton is like, oh, man, I can't help off the dunker spot. Like, Big Z is there.

And it just, it was like the moment he became impossible. And then in overtime, double overtime, he's hitting all these jumpers. And he's also another key. I think he just outlasted everyone. Like, he's always just had the stamina to outlast everyone. goes back to your game seven stat in the moment. And everybody else is a tired and jittery. He somehow, like his stats end up being better than everybody else's.

But obviously, then we have the 2007 Spurs series, which I think was probably defining for him in terms of knowing what he needed to do next. They go to the finals after beating the Pistons in seven, I believe it was seven. And the same formula just doesn't work against the Spurs because instead of of having like an older version of Ben Wallace at the rim, you have Tim Duncan and you have instead of Tayshan Prince, you have Bruce Bowen guarding him. And like, that's

no disrespect to Tayshan Prince. He's one of the best defenders in the world. But it's like there's a difference between him and him and Bruce. Oh yeah, you big Tayshan Prince guy? Oh my God, one of the biggest. Are you kidding me? Tashon Prince? That was my God. Probably my favorite player. I mean, I love

Tayson Prince for obvious reasons, the geographic kind of reasons. But Tashon was awesome. And the Pistons, that was a team full of great, that was a great, cohesive, defensive team. And they didn't have an answer for that. Yeah, and it's like, I think, I think you're on to something there. Yeah, yeah, you just didn't have an answer to that. By the way, also a big Tashon-Prince fan.

I think I was actually going into those playoffs, so I was rooting for the Pistons. But yeah, it was just, it was just an incredible series to watch, but also the fulcrum of what would eventually build out LeBron's game. I think the way that, you know, that zone schemed him out, and all of a sudden he's trying to barrel into guys. It's just not working anymore. I also think, you know, there's some jumpers that he get hit against the pistons, that he wasn't necessarily hitting against the spurs. And the spurs were also much more okay with giving those to him as well.

Like, they would rather just back off and try to make him, you know, barrel into everybody. That just, it just didn't work as well against the spurs. And from there, I think that's where we get into when LeBron starts making some change. to his game. This is, well, this, all of this predates, obviously, the three point boom, I think. And that's not, we know, yes, it does. But if you look at, I printed off, I showed, I didn't literally print it.

I could have, I guess. But I put a screenshot for you of, like, his play type evolution in years, like, one through, I don't know, like, from his second year all the way up to, like, 2014, how he shifted his game. And it really was a geometry shift. And this is, I think, this is the, the, that I think separates LeBron from most every other player. And I'm going to pull, I'm going to reference my buddy Ben Taylor here

and talk about his like multifaceted scalability. The fact that like, and very few other players can do this. When you talk about when you say scalability, you just mean can they take what they do and amplify it to the highest level, to the biggest load. Can they carry an enormous load in a playoff game?

We can see guys that can do, that can carry one type of skill, like they can scale up in one area. like Steph's, I would say is pretty multifaceted. He's got like the pick and roll. He's really, really heavy off ball. But LeBron, his shift, I think, is what separated him. When he shifted from, and we're hoping that Janus is going to grow into this type of player,

Yokic is kind of becoming this way. When he shifted from everything that I'm doing is perimeter, rim facing downhill, because you were talking about him dribbling into those baseline jumpers against the Kings, He was a skinny, he was a powerful dude, and I posted his body evolution. He's become a super powerful guy, and it's kind of shifted back and forth over the years. But when he shifted the angle of the floor and said, like, okay, I can barrel to the basket and punish you in transition on a straight line drive, things like that, but I don't have to do it. I can post you up and use my superpower, which is LeBron the problem solver, like you said, when he slowly start, you can kind of see in the

graphs that once he hit that point of like he can play with his back to the basket, he just became he was already basically impossible to stop. He became one of the more impossible players to stop, I think, in the history of the sport. And I think that's one thing that makes him like transcendently unique. Yeah, I love that you brought this up, Kyle, because I think we saw a so incremental improvement upon all those things in his years in Cleveland that ultimately wasn't good enough at that moment. We all remember, you know, the 2010 series against, against the Celtics, which was probably, you know, like, obviously that was what, you know, shifted him to, to Miami. And that's where I think we saw him play the most incredible basketball of his career, which we'll talk about after the break.

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Wyoming or visit www. 1-800 gambler. net in West Virginia. So now we are coming to the point where LeBron

takes his talents to South Beach and in Miami he, this is, man, this is my favorite LeBron.

This is just, I'm just so excited to talk about this. This was like basketball, big bang for you, right? I mean,

yeah. And it was bad, it was also, I was actually going to say, I thought you were getting into like just basketball,

big bang of all the different things that sort of happened for LeBron in Miami and the way that the league was shifting at the time, like a lot of things converge together to make these, I think, four years in basketball that we honestly do not talk about enough. There were this bridge between eras that was also electric in and of itself. Um, I think, it's fledgling analytics movement there too. I mean, like you get, you get this stuff with, you know, like a guy like Shane Badiere, suddenly we start hearing arguments like, oh, actually Shane Badiere is insanely valuable and people like, what? He does. and hit dribble pull-up jumpers or or ISO.

It's like, no, no, there's like a spatial thing happening in this game that we've been like resisted to that I think really this was sort of the on the timeline of the sport. I almost feel like this was sort of the cradle of innovation. You know, like this is kind of the spot where it started to like, you know, the cocktail started to bubble and fizz. And I feel like I feel like that's what you're getting at. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So, and, you know, in Miami, I think.

tactically, they were working it out and they were figuring it out organically in time right there. So LeBron gets to Miami and the center on that team is Joelle Anthony. Chris Bosch is a power forward. He is still, you know, he is an incredible

mid-range shooter, but he is by all means a mid-range shooter and you have Dwayne Wade one of the best slashing guards of all time and also another incredible mid-range shooter in his own right. And you have shooters around that, but not to the extent that we would see later with like, to your point, addition of Shane Batti.

That team, there is the Maverick series, of course. Like, we can just skip right to that. There were spacing issues on that team, but it was also the worst that I think we've ever seen LeBron play on a big stage. It was just, it was, if there is a black mark in his career, it is that series. And we see, we see basically like Jason Kidd is able to handle him in the post. And he just shouldn't be able to handle him in the post. His aggressiveness is not there.

I think there's obviously some, like, This is for a different podcast and a different topic completely, but there is some of the mental stuff going on with him embracing the villain role and not necessarily being suited for it. It was a very tough year for LeBron. He's getting booed everywhere in the NBA. The heat are like public enemy number one, all of that stuff, right? And it's just like at the end of that series,

you're just kind of thinking like, where does LeBron go from here? And you fast forward to where they go from there, Chris Bosch starts expanding his shooting range. They bring in these shooters. They still go center, right? And this is something that's interesting because Eric Spolster's talked about LeBron a couple of days ago. And we'll talk about that a little bit later.

But one thing that he says is that he always regrets not playing him at center. Like they were, because they were figuring their way towards this evolution, but they weren't all the way there yet. Like it wasn't like you could justifiably do something like that. But the way that they innovated was playing LeBron at the four, playing Chris Bosch at the five, making those two guys a linchpin of,

of their defense, and everybody thought they weren't going to be able to rebound. I remember going into 2012 now going into that Bulls series after they beat the Celtics thinking, okay, they beat the Celtics, but the Bulls are a much better rebounding team. Like, I don't know if they're going to be able to handle that because the Celtics weren't really a good rebounding team at that juncture anymore. And they were much older too, right? And like the heat just beat them with their athleticism. And, well, they beat them in a lot of ways, but, you know, but it was just, it was this

moment where you weren't really sure exactly what was going to happen if you played that way. And you've also, LeBron is making gains on his, on his range too, but he's also taking more of a concerted effort to not settle for three-pointers. He's kind of going back into this motive. Like, I want to get to the rim. I don't want to settle like I did last year in the Maverick series as well. And I think that was something that Dwayne Wade also emphasized for himself as well. So you have all of these sort of shifts. Like everybody here is starting to think about their role in basketball a little bit differently about what the sport could and should look like a little bit differently. And you have Eric Spolster who at the time, at the time, nobody knew was like a coaching genius either. Do you

remember, like when they, in the first year, uh, when they started off like maybe like five and four or something or like six like six and five and it's like they're barely above 500 and everybody thinks this is a disaster. And LeBron like bumps Eric Spolster on the shoulder and it becomes like this huge story. It's so funny to forget about all that stuff. Like it's so funny to forget about the narratives too that you know, I think the church of LeBron has been has a strong foundation. and there's, I feel like he's pretty unassailable, like, legacy-wise. I know there are, like, people on Twitter that love to do the Lubam and, like, try to de-legitimize his titles and things like that.

But it's easy to remember that when we, during that time, during that transition to Miami, the theory was that he ran. The theory was that, like, he didn't dig in and dance with the people that he went to the dance with and dance with the one that brought him. And there was this idea that he wasn't a winner, you know, that, like, he didn't have the killer instinct, which I guess was all sort of, like, predicated on, you know, the Jordan fanatics of like, you got to hit the big shot. You got to, you know, we, we had this idea of basketball. And I just think it's funny to think back about those things that we forget about now before it all played out. And, you know, yeah, totally. And he, he's vindicated

his own style of play. That's a great point. You know, just him. There were times where, like, you know, he would, he would pass to the open three point shooter for a game winner. And everybody would be like, what the hell? Like, yeah, like, this guy has no killer instinct. Like, Skim Bayliss was going on. He's still going on and all. on about it, which also brings me to one of my favorite moments in the LeBron James trajectory, which happened after the Dallas Mavericks loss, where he's asked about his haters. And he's like, I'm not bothered because you still have to go back to being you and I'm LeBron James. That's not what he said, but it's essentially what he said. And I just love that.

It's still like, it will go down as one of my favorite moments in the like LeBron James Pantheon. It's incredible. I'm sure that every columnist at the time probably bashed him for it and talked about why that was the reason that he's in this situation. But I don't give a shit because he was absolutely right. And everything about his play style afterwards got vindicated nowadays. If you don't pass out of a double team, no matter what the situation is in the game, you are roasted for it. As you probably should be because that's the right basketball play. And he made the right basketball play over and over again for long enough that.

you know, it worked out in his favor. Consciousness of video, I think, has really skyrocketed too, which I think has contributed a lot to the like general knowledge of basketball. I like the availability. I mean, I'll have people tweet at me. I'll have like teenagers tweet at me like video clips that they pulled up and they're like pointing out specific things. I just think like the, not the teenagers wouldn't know. I just feel like what I mean by that is like the age of awareness. Like I think people, their awareness of the nuance of basketball is so much more advanced than it has been in the past. And that's just the accessibility of video, which is another thing here. But I think you were talking about the Dallas series.

And like for him to, and this is what I meant about like the multifacetedness of it is that like this was sort of the big seismic moment of like LeBron shifting the geometry of his impact that like he could play. And this has been talked about a lot. But like his post touches skyrocketed. By the time, you know, by like 2012, 13, he was, you know. post-ups comprise like 15% of his touches, which is, which is wild. Yeah, that's, that's like, I think the big thing that they wanted to build in his game, not only just him posting up more for his own scoring, but also becoming enough of a post-threat that you had to double-team him

and he can make plays out of that. And that's, that is, I think, what, you know, what's, we can skip to 2013 where they eventually beat the spurs. That same defensive scheme is not going to work anymore because now you have a version of LeBron. who is shooting incredibly well everywhere on the floor. And I just want to go through some of these numbers just to like, this is Apex LeBron, basically. 2012 to 2014, he's in the 98th percentile and percentage of shots taken at the rim.

That's for two straight years. That is incredible. And it is also, it is a testament to Miami spacing combining with LeBron's aggressiveness and also him being in his complete athletic prime. It is just a beautiful coalescing of all those things. In the mid-range during the Miami years, he's pretty much from the 42% to 45% range. Those were his career highs to this date. I imagine probably that has to do with some of the balance that he was able to get in the spacing that he was able to get. In 2014, he shot 56% from corner, 60% from the left corner.

And a career high, 79% from the rim. He was so damn good this year. And you also, there was a great stat from one of the, oh yeah, he, his post, from what you posted, his post points per possession were 1.103, which was also a career high that year. His efficient field goal percent from the post was 57 percent. It is incredible to me that they didn't win a championship that year. That was the year that the spurs got revenge. And I think the rest of the team was pretty tired by then. I think they talk about it now.

They were at the end of their rope. But that is probably LeBron's best season. Yeah, Dwayne's knees at that point were just like two pieces. two metal poles just sort of like slamming against each other. Like I just can't do. The cartilage situation in Dwayne Wade's knees must have been like a barren desert. I think one of the key thing, like the shot frequency thing when you line it up and look at it from beginning to end is really wild. And I was mentioning to you that like it's crazy.

The corner three things specifically. And some of that comes from like the types of touches that you get. Those things affect it. But like LeBron's shot distribution didn't really change from like, oh, 304. For example, when he was a rookie, LeBron, 4% of his attempts were corner threes. This year, 3% of his preempts. You can talk about barge, barrage, you should have pounce on that one. I wouldn't do that, too, Kyle.

Right. Kill me with kindness. Not going to work. I thrive. I will just fight right back. Pointing into like the percentiles. And that's what's wild where you can see like a shift in basketball is that like he was in the 31st percentile percentile when he was like taking four percent. corner threes, but by 14, 15, to give you an idea of how much the lead changed,

he was shooting 3%, but that was in the seventh percentile. So, like, the NBA totally shift. And this is what's remarkable about LeBron is that, like, he's different from other superstars and that he didn't really, I'm sure people in conference had to adjust what they were thinking about. If you knew you were going to be playing in a playoff series against LeBron, sure, you're going to need to plan in the same way that teams that know they're going have to play a yokech or imbid are going to need to plan but like it didn't reach the level of like

a steff or a shack where it was like we literally have to draft players to defend this person but lebron's skill set was so multifaceted that like he was able to be era proof you know like in this spatial shift in the NBA he shifts and has a whole run with his return to the calves which we're going to talk about where he's dynamic in a different way but just just as impactful. And I think that it's just, it's really remarkable to think about. Like,

not many players could have done that, honestly. No, I mean, it's, it's also, this also gets to the way that he impacted the three point revolution,

but also the way that the three point revolution impacted him. Now, I kind of push back against the idea that he didn't change the, he is in, in some sense, yes, like you can't, you can reach.

Let me hear it. What is it? I love push back. Yeah, that's why you always got your fists up. Yeah. So he, obviously he's not.

Steph Curry or somebody where like, you know, hypothetically you could look at if you were trying to get into the NBA, you could look at like, oh, I'll add to my three point shooting and I'll improve my stamina and I'll try to recreate some of his game. You can't do that with LeBron. He is an athletic specimen. He is innate passing ability. There's things that you can't replicate with him. But I think that his mind, the way that his mind mapped out the court is something that today's dominant playmakers have definitely copied. The driving kick game, just the way that he operates in pick and roll, the idea even of LeBron Plus shooters, which became like the formula that was developing in Miami, which just

like, you know, completely solidified in Cleveland is something that was happening at the same time as it was happening around the league, right? Like I think LeBron was getting into the place where everybody was figuring out that the best way to maximize his skill set was to give him space and give him targets, which is ideally going to be either four shooters or three shooters and one guy at the rim who can dunk. And that is something that was coming together in Miami while the league was also getting to this place where like if you are a role player, then you are going to be incentivized to develop your three point shot and become your three and D player.

there was a point where that type of player, they're still very highly valued, but the value for that type of player really, really skyrocketed around that time because it wasn't just, you know, he gets to this place where it's not just LeBron James doing it this way. It's like James Harden doing it this way. Now it's Luca Donchich is doing this, doing it this way. And pretty much I would say at this point, every, every dominant star who is good enough to regularly command double teams has borrowed from the way that LeBron sees the game, whether it's, you know, later years kind of like navigating in a way of like just getting to the nail, getting to the paint and then making that pass or going all the way to the,

to the rim and driving and kicking to the corner. Some of that stuff is basic basketball. It's always existed. But LeBron did it to an extent that you could build an entire offense around it. And we started seeing that happen. Like I think I think you can even trace like heliocentrism back to LeBron. I almost feel like helio was. I'm just thinking this out loud in the moment and just like see what you think.

It almost feels like Helio was sort of a distortion of what he was doing because it seems more like LeBron is in the lineage of the bird magic, quick, low touch, right decision with the dash of like he could score on ball. But he wasn't a full-blown, I honestly feel like what more he did was saw that, okay, we have this spread pick and roll revolution now. We have this like space that we can put more shooters out there. We can shoot more threes. data says that we should do this. Let's do it. I don't know. LeBron never really was that.

I honestly feel like he was more in the lineage of the low touch time passer. And I said this on Bill's show like last month, I think. I don't know. It kind of feels like basketball had a divergence that maybe he was responsible for, but it wasn't them like mimicking him directly. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's actually fair. That's actually fair. And I would say, yeah, because there's early LeBron, right? And I think in Miami that that offense was so diverse. But almost maybe, maybe this is how it happened. Maybe it was like, Mori took that.

He took like a little cut out of one part of how LeBron does things, realize how efficient it was. And Hardin just starts spamming it essentially. Spamming so much more now that we podcast together. It's like you say it a lot and it's like one of my favorite terms. I don't know. It's almost like a video game. Like I don't know.

when you used to, like, I grew up playing a lot of NBA live online growing up, which dates me, you know. And I remember specifically playing with LeBron early on. I was very excited for him to be on the game here and or there. But I remember, like, if you play online, there would be these, like, idiosyncrasies in the game that people would spam. And that's the first time I can remember. And I, like, I feel like Helio is one of the main times that we saw something like that come to basketball that was, like, data-driven. And, like, I feel like we've kind of reset now that we like seen that in the playoffs, be like tried over and over again. But sorry if I say spamming a lot. I don't like spam the food. I'm not trying to say it a lot, but maybe I do.

No, I like it. It's a great word. I think it's a great descriptor for a lot of the way that the game is played now. But so I would say, you know, Hardin starts spamming it. And I think in turn, in the Cleveland years, we see this increase in usage. from him. And this more, like, he plays one to five, but he's essentially kind of like the point guard for that team. We see like a full modernization of his game. And especially, especially after Kyrie got traded, I think that's probably the year that we

saw it most. So early on, I think it's still kind of like a little bit more in the realm of like Miami taking turns and not necessarily always being the point guard. But when Kyrie was hurt and when Kyrie left or got traded, it turned into more of a heliocentric. LeBron's going to have the ball in his hands the whole time type of style of basketball. And I think like the one game that I go back to is his like 50 point game against the Warriors in the finals, which really, really felt like that. But that's a great point. And that's what's so interesting about this sort of era of of LeBron's career, where.

all these changes are happening in the game, but he's also adjusting to these changes. But he's also really, you know, he's benefiting from these changes as well. If you talk about the three-point revolution, obviously he expands his own range, right? And there's more efficiency and value in him doing that. But there's also more efficient shooters coming into the league now. You know, you've got, you've got like the likes of Kyle Corber on his team, J.R. Smith. Like, you're just surrounded Richard Jefferson. Like, you're just anybody with a.

pulse who can shoot the basketball is going to be, is going to be useful on those Cleveland teams and be really, really valuable on those Cleveland teams. Like, wasn't there, I don't have this in front of me right now, but wasn't there a stat during those years that, you know, LeBron and Corver were like the best offensive duo in the league at some point around that time? I don't remember, but it sounds it sounds like it makes sense. I think that speaks to his malubility that he could be, you know, we talk about if there's a situation that calls like a dire situation of necessity, LeBron is, back in the past, you probably, this is a comic book thing, but I compared Zion to like the symbiote. I just said that he could cover.

LeBron is like the basketball symbiote, meaning that like he can come into a situation and like morph it or bridge the gaps and strengthen it in however it's necessary. He's basically just like the ultimate universal donor like multipurpose tool. You get in. And I personally think those 15 finals are one of the more, I don't want to say under. rated, but I think it's, I absolutely think it's on the level or close to of what he did in 18. Like, the fact that he was able to be like the anchor on both sides of the ball and carry like the decision making load like offensively. I'm sure he was like, I'm sure that was DHO driven, right? And I'm sure that was like off screen movement where Corver would get open.

LeBron can be, he can be a like Subonis, Yokic level like passer in that situation or he can be the roller or he can be the pick and roll ball handler or the post-up guy or the ISO guy. I don't doubt that at all. I don't have that number in front of me, but I think that speaks to his malleability too, that he would have that relationship with Corber. Yeah, that's a great point. And didn't you, like, you had something in our, in our notes about how much time he spent, like, just basically being both the screener and the roller. Was that in the Cleveland years? I mean, if you look at his like progression over the years, I only have up through like 14 here, but you can see that he definitely. had an uptick. It was probably around 08, I would say, up through his early, maybe his first year in Cleveland, where he just spent more time as the roller. And I think all of this kind of illustrates that thing that people talk about when they say, like, okay, five of this person versus five of any other player all time.

I think LeBron has that on lockdown. I can't think of another player that, like, you know, and we're going to, the spolster thing about like, he could, he could, I guess I'm going to bury it here that, like, or I'm unearthed here that like Spolstra said that he could have like spent the season playing any position and been the best in the league at that position I don't think that there's another player in the history

of the league that could say something like that. I really don't. If you want to make a case for him as like the best player of all time, that's a pretty freaking good spot to start honestly. Yeah, that's probably the best place to start. I'm trying to think like Kevin Durant is like maybe the only guy that comes to mind

to somebody but like you're going to have you're going to have some lax in play. making and then you're also like if you on defense like there's going to be certain guys that'll just be able to barrel barrel through as well like lebron can in those yeah lebron lebron lebron in those miami years especially do you remember when he held derrick rose to nine percent shooting in the in the in 2012 in the in the fourth quarter of the conference finals and that was the MVP by the way i think that was lebron's revenge in a way as well um because he definitely should have won mbp you mean you should have won MVP pretty much every year i don't want the chicago ones to hunt me down but i mean

I feel like LeBron put together several MVP seasons in a row and whether he got it or not. And I think that, yeah, his defensive flexibility is just as impressive. He can be on the ball. My galaxy brain take before you. Oh, I can't wait to hear this. I kind of think that year that Rose won. I know everybody says LeBron should have won. I think Dwight Howard should have won MVP that year.

Which is big for you since you love Dwight so much. Oh, so much. So much. So much. So much. we all. Dwight Howard, who I sent here to clip of him saying the D was really important repeatedly in a post game interview.

Yeah, to a female reporter. Oh, God. It was just so cringy. Like, guys, come on. Come on, fellas. Like, are you five? I mean, and it seems like he kind of is. Yeah.

Anyway, sorry. There's a breakout. Yeah, I mean, the fact that he can fight over screens at this point. At this point, he's like the best athlete in the league, right? He could have been a division one wide receiver. Like, he's that kind of athlete. He can fight up screens. stay on the ball. The other thing is that he can like meet sinners and body them and like at the

rim. I think that's the argument there for like maybe Spolstra kicking himself not playing him at the five. I think he's he's probably the all-time player. And I know that like basketball nerds, we do this like fantasy thing where we're just like so and so at the five. So and so at the five. It's just fun to think about what could happen. But I think I think LeBron's probably one of the main guys that could do that both directions really, capably. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. you know, I think this is a good time to talk about the Lakers years. Not quite as exciting as the other years, but they all, they do, I mean, they do hit on some important things like that. And then you talked about earlier with the corner three percentile shift.

LeBron should just never be in the 46 and 40th percentile for shooting. I think that really speaks to the Lakers' lack of spacing. Like, he has been the best shooter on that team, a different. times. And let's not, I don't know, I don't want to like really go over this too much. We all know this about the modern day Lakers. But the biggest shift in his game is that is probably that. The shift from his, his rim efficiency is just not what it used to be.

He has, unfortunately, as a tear rolls down, my face lost a step in that regard. He just doesn't finish as well as he used to. He also, I mean, I don't know, I guess Jason Tatum can just like clobber him. And that's fine. it's just that's just okay i guess but you know that all a lot of that has actually just shifted straight to a three point line

his his rim stuff he is there is just not a lot of mid-range to be found these days in in the bronze game he has become a lot more like he's become a lot more of like a map of what you'd want like the perfectly efficient player to be if you if you look at like his usage like him flirting with the helio range by necessity if you look since in his past six seasons, because this is all I have in front of me here, his averages

were anywhere from like per 100 possessions, like 116 up to like 127 in 2021. This year, they're 105, which is like by, it's dramatically lower than like his touches in the past per 100. And he's still posting like his fourth highest scoring season per game ever. That just speaks to, he's capable of that. It's always had an odd jump shot, though. I was I was just going to say, like the lean thing. It's kind of, it's interesting. Do you think it's because he's so strong that he maybe has to like depower himself a little bit and lean so that his touch is softer? It's just spitball in here.

So during the Clippers game last week when he hit a career high nine threes, I was sitting next to Cooper Halpern at Silver Screen & Roll, who made the great point that when LeBron does the lean and like kind of lands imbalanced on his left, he usually misses a shot. In that game, he was completely balanced. So I think it could actually just be a weakness in his shooting. Like when he does shoot like that, and you're naturally going to be a little bit off balance when you're leaning back like that. And when he doesn't do it, it seems like that's more likely that the shot is going to go in

or it's like a good looking shot. Deere and Fox does that. Deere and Fox says that little lean, and I've noticed if his feet land a certain way, if they don't land straight where they were, that matters too. Like I feel like if you get a little drift, of course, I'm sure LeBron,

on some level has like an intentionality to playing that way, but or to doing that in his shot, albeit for me, I'm sure he's thought about this, you know, I'm sure that LeBron has considered this because he's considered thing. And I think that's a good segue to what that spolster clip. I think that's a good segue to like the mindfulness that he's had throughout his career.

Like I feel like that's one, that is like the key thing that feeds into the other aspects that have made him durable. Before, well, before we get into that, I do have one question for you. because if we look at the Lakers tenure right now, I think it's a good preview for what we could see from LeBron later down the line. So I'm just kind of curious, like, as he eventually really ages out,

like, what do you think, based on everything we've talked about today, like, you know, LeBron's game looks like maybe three years from now? I mean, he's adjusted to the slower pace thing. I'm curious, I'm curious, like, which thing's going to catch up to him first. I mean, I'd imagine it's going to be defense, because I, feel like LeBron will be able to, like, offensively impact the game. He's going to be able to maybe not, maybe not like he'll scale down, talking about how much he scaled up. I'm sure he'll scale down and take more of a back seat.

I'm kind of wondering what the lowest, like, what's the lowest output? What's the most compromised defensively iteration of him that is going to, that he's going to accept, you know? Because I mean, he's going to be able to hit open threes, I would imagine. You just, you're not going to see as much of him bending the defense off the bounce. Obviously, we'll see some of the transition stuff start to dwindle a little bit. I'd still think he'll be a pretty capable pick and roll passer. You're just not going to see his I think. I think the rim pressure might be the thing that deflates some of his effectiveness, don't you think? Yeah, I think him as a as a passer off the roll is going to be really interesting,

like kind of being like one of those short roll fours, because he's always going to have that touch around the rim now, right? And he could kind of just make reeds from there, kind of like the way a I'm at a biotype of player does right now. And I think we'll probably, like, we've been waiting for this, but he'll probably go a little bit more into his Carl Malone era as well, just like kind of putting pressure on teams like by posting up. And like, that's actually one thing that was that I noticed in the Cleveland years. How dare you compare him to Carl Malone on any level.

Now, first of all, I just kind of feel like I need to go, I'm, I need to go like free the road. I'm going to light a candle at a Catholic church. Burn some incense. But, you know, he, uh, in his Cleveland years, one thing that, you know, changed was he attacked a lot more from the left side of the court, which is always where he's been at his best. And I could see him more just going towards that, like, hey, this is where I'm most efficient as he stops being a ball handler. Like, hopefully at some point the Lakers get,

you know, a point guard that can, you know, like, we'll be willing to be a set up man for him. He could just kind of age into that and maybe not necessarily be like the same high usage guy he is right now. But I don't know. It could be. it'll be interesting to see. I always feel like he likes the left side. I mean, this is true of a lot of players, but I think he just, he has such a laser accuracy with his right hand passing.

I feel like that's like a big reason why the left side of the court works so well for him. And I think that's why his ability to like flip the floor like with skip passes. Yeah, I think that's going to be a thing that'll stay valuable for him for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It should be interesting. The last thing I think is just the overall durability. And we were talking to, we, I feel like the sport.

fulsher thing has been a nice sort of like narrative spine for this conversation is that like he just had a curiosity throughout the throughout the his time in the league and it was like obvious that he was preparing for later you and i've had a lot of like laughing conversations about like lucca and maybe even Zion like the next generation has learned a lot from him you were in and also that like a person they were talking about tidiness that like lebron's really tidy and that that's a reflection of and uh i was asking you i was like i feel like uh i feel like i feel like i could guess whether or not Syriot is a tidy person. I don't know.

She sort of dodged the question, but I know I can tell you I'm not. I don't know. I'm very inconsistent. I have, like right now, everything around me is pretty clean, but I have moments where it's just, like, things are not good. I'm just looking around my apartment right now. Right now, it's pretty clean. Okay.

But, yeah, Spolster was talking about how, you know, how you do everything, how you do anything is how you do everything is what he said. That's a great thing. And he talks about how, you know, in Miami, you're not allowed to have a messy locker. they feel like your workspace should be clean, that you shouldn't have all of, like, the things that you collect over the year, over the season, like, always in front of you. It feels very, like, feng shui. But, yeah, so apparently LeBron, like, the first time that he saw LeBron, like, as a member of the, he, he walks into the locker room and LeBron was, like, folding his clothes. And so it was like, okay.

Like, he's already, like, on this page. And he was already, like, starting to do some of the stuff with, like, his body maintenance, like, with his sleep, with, like, just a nutrition. and stuff that has now become like more regularized like guys are tracking their own health nutrition sleeping patterns all that stuff way way more um and it's become kind of regular for guys to do that and also like they you know when young players get to miami they always ask they always ask like you know what was a bronze routine um and but the thing that was really interesting about it was just and this this this is basically part and parcel of the same thing because it just has to be boring to do that stuff every day it just like i that's

how I would imagine it. I'm not a very consistent person though. So like, you know, like LeBron's a Capricorn. That's just, these are very Capricorny traits. Yeah, I know you're pissed right now. I know, but I'm going to keep it going. You don't even get to, you don't even get to. Yeah. What are we doing? LeBron is a Capricorn to the core. He is like,

he's incredibly organized and consistent. I get ganged up on on this show with the astrology stuff. I just want to say. I'm going to ask LeBron his moon and rising next Lakers press conference and I'll probably have my credential revoked after that. But he is someone who has not gotten bored of the process. Like that's one thing that Spoh gets into is just that he, you know, threw out all of these changes in the league. He's always been curious when he sees another

player pull off a move. He's always said like, hey, like what, how did he do that and how can I do that? Yeah. I think that I would be curious to see Kareem was extremely. meticulous. Like he, an extremely meticulous personality that like, I always, I made a video about Corrine where I was joking about like he was like the Andy Dufrein of the, of the NBA. Now, you've seen Shawshank Redemption, surely. Yes. Okay. Well, they were just talking about geology, basically, pressure in time. Like, that, like, I think LeBron has that too. I think that, like, attention to process. And a thing that, like, and I think this is visible in his playmaking and stuff like that, is that, like, he does have, he understands the, the, the fact that a player can be a

conduit in a good, in a good flowing offense. LeBron can shift and be and be a dominant score if he needs to be. But I think if you, if you think about, like, the legacy that he's left in the NBA, I hope that what you mentioned is true about, like, young players coming in that, like, the curiosity, the, the attitude of, like, and I was telling you, this is something that I really want to impress on my son when he starts to get older is that like I think like how much time is spent in viewing it through the NBA lens how much time is spent by players good players even wasted because they have something that works and their their resistance to adding things you know I think the best players add things and they they have like a humility about like because the longer

that you spend thinking that you know something when you actually don't like if you're quicker to admit your ignorance on something, the faster that you're going to know it. You know what I mean? Like, you don't go into things knowing everything at the beginning. So I just think that, like, LeBron's willingness to embrace that part of basketball, it's, I'm not going to say it's a miracle, but, I mean, I think that, like, if you look at how he went from, we, this guy is, like, cover of Slam Sports Illustrated, he's the chosen one, he's King James.

The fact that we went from there to hear where he's breaking the points record. I think that's a major factor other than being 6-9, 240 and incredible hand-eye coordination and one of the best athletes ever. Other than that, we've had a lot of those. I think that's a great point because you would think with all of that hype coming into the league that this would be that like a lot of people would come in and feel so much pressure. Like they had to already have been arrived and been fully formed by the time they got into league. And which to his credit in a lot of ways he was. but would feel that sense of I already need to know everything so I can't possibly be ignorant about anything because that would be like that would be me not living up to expectations.

That would be like dangerous to some extent. You know, I find that as I get older, I feel like one thing I've realized about most people is that like the battle is really in our mind. So if you feel insecure in somewhere, if you feel pressure in some way, it's all internalized and it's all about you convincing yourself that you're already good enough to live up to those expectations. And when you're in that mode of things, it's really difficult to actually just let go and accept what you don't know and have that curiosity. Like curiosity is something that I think it's a muscle that you have to kind of build over time. But it's also something that

you're not always going to have in every moment of your life. You're not necessarily going to have it in your insecure moments. You're going to kind of go more into that mode of like tunnel vision and just trying to do things the way that you've always done them. And I think you see players and people, everyone do that at different points in their life. And the fact that LeBron, like every juncture in his career, like even after the most like devastating junctures in his career has come back and just evolved, just I think probably like speaks to his, I don't know, his mental clarity or something. Like I don't have the word for it, but it's incredible. Well, how many points away is he? I think we're like at this date that we're recording this.

It's he didn't play last night. No, he didn't play last night. So he's 117 points away. Vegas has the odds at him, it happening on the 7th. I really hope it happens on the 7th of the 9th because it'll be at home and I'll get to see it. I'm just so excited to be able to like witness a moment like that. Oh my God.

Didn't even mean to say witness. But yeah, it just it's, this is really cool, man. This is a really cool moment in NBA history. I'm so excited that we get to experience it. I'm so excited that we got to. to talk about it for this long. Like, we've gone so long on this podcast today, but I think it's just because we couldn't help it. I'm just, I'm so hyped up.

I'm so hyped up about this. This is just so cool. Yeah. And in the way, you know, LeBron's just like a little older than me. And so I've kind of, I've talked about how like I got into this. It's interesting your markers. Like you were talking about that like that era of basketball was your big bang. You know, like my big bang was like the dream, the original dream team, which is like I was

into basketball pretty young. But LeBron and I were being like a sort of in proximity to age. it's just been cool and I do frequently think to myself whenever I feel like man I might have to stop playing myself I'm like well LeBron's still going I was like it's a sliding scale

but I can find an excuse to drag my ass out there and play a little more but I'm excited about it too it's been he's one of the more he deserves what he's done for the sport and you know I know I know we have all like we make I make fun of the corny shit he says too I make fun of the fact that he

seems to always be starting books he's definitely a dad. He's definitely a dad. LeBron's evolution has been incredible and great for the sport. And it's been, it's exciting. I hope you get to witness it.

Like, I hope that's going to be an electric moment. Like to see, I assume Kareem will be there. You know, it's going to be appointment television. Like you're going to, you're going to need to be watching that night.

I hope he stays healthy, knock on wood. And I'm really excited about it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I hope it happens. It could, I mean,

either way, when it happens, it's going to be special. And, you know, we're going to be watching. I'm sure everybody's going to be watching. Maybe we'll talk about it again.

We will, sir. Either way, if not, we'll see. We'll talk to all of you guys next week. Kyle, I will talk to you. Well, I'll probably talk to you very soon, but I'll talk to you on the air a week from now. Thank you, as always, for being here. Thank you, Chris Sutton for producing. And also, guys, we're going to have some great LeBron content coming out in the next, in the next week or so.

I'm really excited about it. we've got a lot of a lot of great writers cooking out some great stuff so keep your eyes on the site also we're doing a live show in salt lake city at also weekend so chariot and i both will be there logan um kevin k o c c's going to be there uh who else i don't want to forget uh michael pina is going to be there too waz will be there too yeah so big panel so come out and see us yeah come out and see us at saturday night if you were in uh in salt lake city at the time uh we would love to meet you right on