The Sunday Mail
In just six days, LeBron James turns 33 and the fact is that the guy is getting old.
He’s showing all the usual signs of ageing.
He’s more vocal about politics, he’s extremely opinionated and incredibly picky when it comes to wine.
What he’s gained in wisdom he’s lost in hair.
However, the fact remains, he remains the same LeBron James.
Somehow, in his 15th season, after seven consecutive trips to the Finals, having worked more than anybody in NBA history at his age, as everything we thought we knew about longevity, performance and the limits of the human body would suggest he should be getting worse, the best player on the planet is still getting better.
It was reasonable to believe that James was in his prime when he won two NBA championships and MVP awards with the Miami Heat.
It seemed like he’d peaked.
And then he kept climbing.
His numbers this season aren’t merely good for most NBA players.
They’re good for LeBron James.
He’s very much in the conversation for his fifth MVP, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are once again title contenders even after trading Kyrie Irving and waiting for Isaiah Thomas.
All they have done since their puzzling 5-7 start is win 18 of 20 games.
They play the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day in what should be the highest-rated game of the NBA’s regular season, and while the Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets have ascended into their stratosphere, a fourth consecutive Finals between the Warriors and Cavaliers still feels likely.
It’s almost entirely because of one player.
“I’ve run out of ways to explain his greatness,” Cleveland guard Kyle Korver said.
So let us count the ways.
James is much better than the league’s oldest players, and he’s much older than the league’s best players.
The most productive NBA stars in terms of value above the replacement player this year averaged 16 000 career minutes coming into this season.
James was the only one above 32 000 minutes—and he’d logged more than 50 000 minutes.
He’s still far and away No. 1 in the VORP rankings.
The irony of James ruling this era that will be remembered for the way the league was revolutionised by shooting is that he’s never been an outstanding shooter.
He never had to be.
But the subtle tweaks he made to his mechanics during three-a-day workouts over the summer have paid off.
He’s now shooting a career-high 41 percent on threes —which means James is quietly a more accurate three-point shooter this season than Stephen Curry.
James is also a better two-point shooter than ever.
His percentage inside the arc is the highest of his career, and he’s making 77,9 percent of his field goals in the restricted area.
The few players who are that unstoppable around the basket only take half as many shots as James.
If there is one metric that explains how dominant he’s been — and how astounding it is that he’s still this dominant — it’s his effective field-goal percentage of 62,8 percent.
In his four MVP seasons, the years when he was too good to take for granted, James’s effective field-goal percentages were 53 percent, 54,5 percent, 55,4 percent and 60,3 percent.
He’s now more efficient than the most efficient versions of himself.
Shooting aside, James is the NBA’s best player in part because he might be the best passer.
He’s on his way to career highs in assists (9,3 per game) and potential assists (18,7 per game), and even more revealing is his assist rate, the percentage of his team’s field goals he assists while on the court.
His career assist rate is 35 percent, while his career-high assist rate is 41,8 percent, but his assist rate this year is 45,4 percent.
He knows how his teammates like their passes. He knows where they like their passes. He even knows when to make his passes.
“I can see plays happen before they actually happen,” James said.
That’s because he is a basketball genius.
The esteemed LeBronologists who have studied his game and appreciate its complexities understand what makes it work: his intelligence.
His old high-school coach Keith Dambrot, for example, would introduce a play at practice.
James would process the information almost immediately, and he could play all five positions and tell everyone on the court where they were supposed to be and why.
“And I’m talking when he was 14 years old,” said Dambrot, who is now Duquesne’s coach.
“You’d have to be an idiot not to notice how smart he is.”
To watch him play now is to see total control.
James warps the game to his will. He can slow down when necessary and speed up when necessary.
He’s older, and if he’s not better than he once was, it has become undeniable that he’s still getting better. For the majority of his life, James has been compared with incredible players who came before him, and it was always unfair to him.
It was like not being able to enjoy sushi because it wasn’t pizza.
But his burden may soon be his benefit, because even the incredible players who came before James are beginning to pale in comparison.
James has played 31 percent more than Michael Jordan at the same age, and he’s already played thousands of minutes more than Jordan in his entire career.
Jordan was a shadow of himself by his 15th season.
It’s rare for any Hall of Famer to play 15 seasons, and it’s unprecedented for someone to reign over the league in his 15th season.
James himself offered the latest explanation: his ultimate goal is to beat the aging process.
“Hopefully I can break the mold,” he said, “so when the next guy comes, he can still get $200 or $300 million and be 33 years old.”
The only problem for the next guy is that he won’t be LeBron James.
