That’s not going to happen as none of the parties involved want to give up the lost revenue. Even then, you’d still have players sitting out. A lot of these players are being load managed, yet still getting injured.
Random NBA Observations 2022 - 2023
- Thread starter Big Jo
- Start date
nairdas
I've Destroyed Whole Planets
Oh I know it will never happen because of the money, but seeing so many players sit out is annoying. And these players don't be injured the way they say they are. And then some probably are getting injured because they are being load managed too much and their body isn't properly adjusted to playing NBA basketball all the time.
VegetasHairline
Veteran
LeBron's journey to the NBA scoring record in shot charts
At some point soon -- likely sometime next week -- LeBron James will sink one of the most historic field goals or free throws in NBA history. As that shot falls through the goal, the 38-year-old superstar will surpass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the league's all-time leading scorer.
It's a remarkable feat brought to you by an incredible blend of scoring talent and sustainability that we haven't seen in pro basketball since Abdul-Jabbar, who was one of the league's best players for nearly two decades.
James was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 draft, and over his 20 seasons in the NBA, he has both improved and evolved as a scorer, and his shot charts tell the story of how the teenager who came into the league without a reliable jump shot will end up scoring more points than anyone who has ever set foot on an NBA court.
2003-04: Rookie of the Year
Despite winning honors as the league's best rookie in 2003-04 while averaging nearly 21 points per game, James struggled to blend scoring volume with scoring efficiency.
Of the 46 players who attempted at least 1,000 field goals that year, James ranked 41st in effective field goal percentage.
His rookie year shot chart reveals a young player who was a below-average jump shooter and pedestrian in the paint. It does not portend passing Abdul-Jabbar.
Three stats from his rookie campaign stand out as prime examples of how far James was from being the scorer we know now:
- James ranked 72nd out of 74 NBA players who attempted at least 200 3s, converting 29.0% of his attempts. Only Jason Richardson and Antoine ("Because there are no 4s") Walker were less efficient from downtown.
- James ranked 119th out of 126 NBA players who attempted at least 200 midrange shots, converting 33.2% of his attempts.
- James ranked 72nd out of 114 NBA players who attempted at least 200 shots in the restricted area, converting 57.5% of his attempts.
2004-05: Small steps forward
In Year 2, James started to show glimpses of what would eventually become his signature strength as a scorer: his incredible paint production.
James' ability to score in the paint is the biggest reason he's bound to pass Abdul-Jabbar. In his rookie year, he ranked 11th in the league in points in the paint; in Year 2, he ranked third. That helped him increase his scoring average from 20.9 to 27.2, which happens to also be his career scoring average. In his third year in the league, when he averaged a career-high 31.4 points per game, James was second in the NBA in paint points, trailing only Shaquille O'Neal, who was still playing some of the most dominant interior basketball in league history.
2007-08: Scoring champ
From a scoring perspective, the long ascent to "peak LeBron" involved learning how to use his speed, strength, and skill to get good looks at the rim and convert them into buckets.
When he won his only scoring title at 23 years old in 2007-08, 55.4% of his league-leading 794 buckets came within the restricted area. He had a scoring crown and a trip to the Finals under his belt, but he still did not have a reliable jumper. That season, he converted just 33.1% of 964 jumpers.
By the time he left Cleveland, James had realized his potential as an individual player. He won two consecutive MVP awards on his way out the door in part because those Cavaliers rosters were so thin, and James had to do it all. In the 2008-09 season, he led his team in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. That's amazing, but it also just proved he needed more help.
Taking his talents to South Beach
As James entered his prime, he took his talents to a much better basketball environment in Miami, and what came next was peak LeBron James.
It didn't happen overnight, but as James got accustomed to playing alongside Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, he learned to trim out tough jump shots and trust his teammates, and his efficiency numbers soared.
His final two seasons in Miami happen to be the only two years in his career that James averaged fewer than 18 shots per game. He became obsessed with efficiency, especially in 2012-13, when he helped the Heat go on a 26-game winning streak during the regular season en route to a second consecutive NBA championship. From a pure efficiency standpoint, this chart might be his masterpiece.
He was still a menace at the rim, but his jump shooting numbers were stronger than ever. That remains the only time he's made more than 40% of his 3s in a season, but his midrange numbers were great, too. He capped off that season with his second title, and -- aside from Ray Allen's unforgettable corner 3 -- the biggest shot of that legendary Finals win over the San Antonio Spurs is arguably James' Game 7 19-foot jumper with 27 seconds remaining to give Miami an insurmountable 4-point lead. That capped off a game in which he went 5-for-10 on 3s and 4-for-10 on 2-point jumpers; the Spurs dared James to beat them from the outside, and he did.
In Miami, James was liberated from being the entire focus of the offense. He learned to play off the ball. He learned to be more selective and more intentional with his shot selection. It was a luxury that comes with playing on a great team. Sometimes efficiency has as much to do with a player's surroundings as his individual abilities. As his numbers soared to new heights, those who studied James the most honed in on the confluence of lower usage, higher efficiency and hyper-intelligent shot selection. Just check out what America's most respected LeBronologist, Brian Windhorst, wrote back in May 2013 after James won his fourth MVP award:
"Less bad shots, more good shots, more attempts from places he learned he was good at shooting from against defensive strategies, less attempts against strategies that were designed to bait him into bad decisions. ... It was often dismissed as a hot streak or the result of a bunch of dunks. It was so much deeper than that. It was James applying his understanding of a decade in the NBA and merging it with his talent."
Peak LeBron manifested when his brain, his body and his playing situation all aligned in Miami.
Still, as great as those years were, James left Miami in 2014 as an 11-year vet with 23,170 points. He'd won four MVP awards and two NBA championships, but he was still 15,217 points shy of Jabbar's record.
Return to Cleveland
As a scorer, James may have peaked in Miami, but the descent from that peak has been modest. His incredible ability to sustain his health and his interior scoring numbers has him on the precipice of history nine years after he left the Heat.
In the 10-season span from 2008-09 through 2017-18, James led the NBA in restricted area scoring six times. In his final season in Cleveland, he converted an astonishing 534 field goals in that critical zone.
That was the biggest number of LeBron's career; no player had scored so many buckets there since MVP-level Shaq put up 571 in 1999-00, when everyone knew Shaq was the most dominant interior scorer on the planet.
While Stephen Curry and James Harden were changing pro basketball with unprecedented amounts of 3-point field goals, James was racing toward Abdul-Jabbar with a tried and true basketball formula: dominating the interior.
While James will never come close to matching Curry from deep -- though he does rank ninth in NBA history with 2,222 career 3-pointers -- it might not matter much. James' interior stats remain as staggering as Curry's perimeter prowess.
LeBron as a Laker
Late-era James is a different kind of scorer. This season, James still ranks sixth in the league in points in the paint per game, and while those paint buckets still drive his overall success, his jump-shooting behavior has changed dramatically since 2003.As the league has evolved, so has James, turning his back on those non-paint 2s that represented more than one-third of his field goal attempts in the early days and replacing them with a steady diet of 3-point attempts.
The average distance of James' made jumpers during his rookie season was 15.7 feet, in the heart of the midrange. Last season that number was 22.5 feet, much closer to the 3-point arc.
James enters Tuesday's game against the New York Knicks (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT) averaging 29.9 points per game, good for sixth in the NBA. Considering James is 38 years old, what he is doing is not only unprecedented -- the previous high for a player at 38 or older was 23.4 by Abdul-Jabbar in 1985-86 -- but it is also proof James has a lot of fuel left in the tank.
James isn't hanging on past his effective days just to break a record. Like Curry did to Allen's 3-point record last season, James is blowing by Jabbar's milepost at 100 mph. In his first 11 games as a 38-year-old, James averaged 36.1 points per game. This is not Abdul-Jabbar barely averaging double digits in his 20th season or even Michael Jordan limping to 20 a game with the Washington Wizards in 2002-03. James is bound to elevate this record to unprecedented heights.
This chart shows that no active players are even close to James in either minutes played or points scored. This record is just as much about durability as it is about scoring. In 76 seasons, only seven players -- including James -- have logged at least 50,000 minutes on an NBA court. While players like Kevin Durant, Harden, and Curry may be more gifted scorers than James, none of them have held up to the wear and tear of pro basketball nearly as well as James has.
When his career ends, James will not only likely hold the NBA record for points scored, but he will also have established a new record for minutes played too (he's 3,854 shy of Abdul-Jabbar). Any superstar trying to eclipse his scoring record, will also have to match his unprecedented ability to stay healthy and productive for more than two decades. It's hard to imagine that happening, especially in the era of load management.
Among the top 29 players in minutes played in NBA history, James ranks first in points scored per 36 minutes. He has scored more than 2,000 points in a season 10 times. His lowest total in a season was 1,126 when injuries and a pandemic-shortened schedule limited him to 45 games.
Unless he calls it quits sooner than expected -- he's under contract for at least one more season, and he holds a player option for 2024-25 -- it's reasonable to assume James will reach the 40,000-point mark next season.
Yes, Father Time is undefeated, but like Tom Brady, James seems to be extending his superstar window beyond 20 years, and that extension will likely push the league's scoring bar into uncharted territory.
threattonature
Veteran
Most of the games they sit out for load management are back to backs. With a lot less games you can get rid of the back to backs. You're right that it'll never happen as teams won't want to give up the extra revenue.
To me the best timing to lower the total number of games is around the new TV contract. If the TV contract is large enough compared to the old one than they likely won't see much of a difference in total revenue generated by cutting the games.
Tell me why Fox deserves it more
Cause his team is 3 games better than Minnesota in the standings? The same Minnesota that has been missing an all-star for most of the season and has had Ant carry the team while improving every single facet of his game?
I said it in my original comment. Sacramento is doing something that they haven’t in a long time. We’ve seen the league reward teams like that before when it comes All Star nods, so let’s not pretend that they haven’t. Hell, they did it once with Atlanta and four all stars.
This is the exact problem with everyone in the league putting up numbers as everyone will point to theirs as to why they should be an All Star.
Someone is going to get left out regardless. Wait until All NBA discussion and it’s going to get even worse.
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I'd be worried about that knee developing arthritis if/when he does come back if it hasn't already.
VegetasHairline
Veteran
VegetasHairline
Veteran
unfortunately dude is probably cooked at this point
iceberg_is_on_fire
Wearing Lions gear when it wasn't cool
