But it's true. Yes Lebron has improved his skill set, and he was already skilled coming into the league. But I believe there's some stats that point out his extremely high fg% near the basket plus low jump shooting percentage. That's him exploding to the rim as a 6'8 240 freight train.
He's improved his 3pt shooting by 10% over the course of his career. 10%!
Take away his athleticism and is he skilled enough to dominate like pierce (2 yrs ago), Melo, Kobe, Jordan? I dunno.
Pierce has never been dominant. JORDAN???? He was the one of the most athletically gifted players the league had ever seen when he showed up.
As for my response to
@DPresidential - I deleted your LeBron points for the sake of cleanliness. LeBron has incredible physical tools, but also incredible control over those physical tools to go along with an upper-echelon understanding of the game. He's the best wing passer in the game. Great vision, great timing. He also uses a ton of angles on offense, along with the bullying that comes with his size/strength. He's also constantly getting smaller advantages, flopping is a great example... it drives people nuts, but it's small moves like that - that give him even more advantages beyond physical skills.
I don't know how to respond to "if he lost his athleticism" arguments, because if most of these guys "lose athleticism" they're no longer NBA players. Is the question "if he was only as athletic as paul pierce, would he dominate?" I don't know, Paul Pierce has never dominated... but he'd be a better passer, he'd be bigger and longer. He's a better shooter now, so he'd probably be a better shooter. He'd be better. You used Kobe, but even kobe from two years ago was WAY more athletic than Paul Pierce. You also used MJ... I don't even know how to respond to that, MJ was a freak.
I threw a lot of shade at you, probably undeserving. But the idea that the best player in the game right now "relies on his athleticism" is some real barbershop bullshyt.
I was not saying that "without athleticism he is NOTHING". No. He will still be formidable however, Melo is the type of player that has a skill set that will have no real hiccup when atrophy kicks in.
Ehh... I'd argue that we've seen some of melo's atrophy kicking in. His shooting % at and around the rim is down, and the % of his baskets near the rim is down DEMONSTRABLY from 2-3 years ago.
Are you seriously saying that there is NO WAY that Lebron's depreciating athleticism could be a concern when it comes to assessing the consistent elite performance of superstars?
5 years from now, Lebron will still be better than 95% of the players in the league. I'm not comparing him to Jermaine O' Neal bruh.
And do you totally discredit my point about Melo's skill set transferring over like Zbo?
As far as these points: I didn't say any of that. I only responded to the idea that LeBron relies on his athleticism. Could he depreciate? Sure. I think that if you look at how Melo's game is getting further and further from the hoop
(fewer dunks in the last 4 years than he had in 08 alone) - There are concerns that his game may not age well, either. People like to say "Kobe ages well because he's so skilled" well yes, but he's also still been an elite NBA athlete up until the last two years. Top 5-10%, easy. Same with Melo. It's not like Melo is Matt Harpring and still getting buckets. We're not talking about 35 year old Sabonis with no knees giving you 12/8.
So it as a gut reaction to your post.
I also wanted to do a little myth-busting about the whole "oh his game is going to age well" - I'm not so sure of that. He's already not a good defender. He's only going to get worse. His game is getting further from the hoop, his Finishing rate around the basket is down 2+% points EVERY season for the last 6 seasons. This year 3pts made up 40% of his shots. 40%! He's missing games... there are causes for concern.
So I jumped you on the LeBron shyt to make a point about the way you were talking about basketball more than just about you. We don't know each other, I'm sure we both want the team to be good. So no beef intended...
Just look at those numbers, and look at the player we might be signing a to a max deal.
I'm not totally sold I want those trends 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now... He's not opting out of this next deal.
