LeBron James Enters 30th Year Offering Flashes of Evolving NBA Game
LeBron James has wrestled with pressure, expectation, doubt and even history during his career. Now, he's taking on mortality.
Every player declines eventually. We just react a little differently when age catches up to a great one.
He's just holding back until it matters. He knows how to pace himself. Wait until April.
When we see occasional flashes, we nod knowingly to one another: See? He's still got it when he needs it.
At the same time, we know decline doesn't manifest itself as a sudden and total disappearance of athleticism. You don't abruptly lose the ability to run fast and jump high. What you lose is the ability to run fast and jump high all the time.
You have good days and bad ones. Fifth gear is there on Monday and gone on Tuesday. The nagging injuries nag a little longer.
It's a gradual, intermittent degradation, and you'd have to be crazy to look at James now and not see that's exactly what's happening.
Signs of Slippage
It shows up on defense most, where LeBron stands rigidly upright far more often than he once did. James used to rotate, jump passing lanes and dart in to help like a king cobra—languid, coiled in anticipation for that fraction of a second when his prey made the fatal mistake of relaxing.
Now, James' defense is more mechanical than animalistic. He doesn't pounce; he calculates, deciding whether a strike here or there is worth the effort. His steal rate is at a career low, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
Most telling: The instances in which LeBron doesn't run back on defense at all have increased. It happened some last year, James losing possession and staying behind to bark at officials. But he's expanded the troubling practice now.
There are a lot of ways to process James' defensive decline, but the simplest is this: It's a little sad.
There's evidence of LeBron's slippage on offense as well. He's dunking the ball less frequently than ever, which isn't necessarily a red flag in isolation. It's troubling in this case because it ties into the larger problem James has had finishing at the basket.
James is shooting 67.8 percent inside three feet, per Basketball-Reference.com, which is a darn good conversion rate for most players. For LeBron, it's the least accurate he's been from that distance since his rookie season.
It's not hard to tie James' diminished accuracy at close range to his athletic decline. Losing a little blow-by speed and super-ball bounce underneath leads to fewer uncontested layups and a lower success rate on well-guarded tries.
Perspective, Please
Given James' mileage, it's remarkable that it's taken this long for signs of slowdown to emerge. He's logged over 34,000 regular-season minutes before reaching his 30th birthday. He's been to the NBA Finals four years in a row, effectively playing eight-month seasons of high-intensity basketball against teams hellbent, specifically, on stopping him.
His usage rate of 31.6 is the sixth highest of all time, per Basketball-Reference.com. Wear and tear were bound to catch up to him eventually.
It's important to keep some perspective on what this decline really means. James is still a great player. He's also slipped a bit. Because he set the bar so high over the past few years, both of those things can be true at the same time.
If not for LBJ's ridiculous statistical past, we'd look at his 25.6 player efficiency rating and the fact that he's the only player in the NBA currently shooting 48 percent from the field with averages of at least 25 points, seven assists and five rebounds and marvel.
Even in decline, LeBron occupies a class of his own.
James himself has admitted to wearing down, albeit in a way that doesn't concede diminished effectiveness, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com:
"You can look at it in a bad way or a good way," James said. "I've expanded the rest of my game. I'm still out there making plays. My athleticism, obviously I'm not the 18-year-old kid that I was before. But I can still do the things I need to do to be successful."
James said that after touching up the New Orleans Pelicans for 41 points on Dec. 13—an effort that came, not coincidentally, after LBJ took a game off to rest and recover.
You can take that 41-point effort and convince yourself that James really is just saving up his skills, preserving his body for a run when it counts.
After all, in addition to self-preservation, there's a financial incentive for him to coast. LeBron might be taking it easy because he's got a potentially massive pay day coming in 2016 when his current contract expires and the salary cap spikes. He can even opt out this summer if he wants to.
Maybe James really is just in chill mode, playing it cool until his future is secure and/or the postseason rolls around.
Can't or Won't?
We've come all this way and the source of James' decline is still hazy. Is he unable or unwilling to play like he used to? Is this a "can't" or "won't" situation?
For me, the answer is clearer when you consider the stakes he's facing in Cleveland right now.
James is the elder statesman on a team with lots of young talent and little experience in winning basketball. Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love have never made the playoffs. Every player on the team (not to mention every fan in the city) is looking to James for leadership, for an example of how to succeed.
And they're seeing that guy make rotations a step slow or not at all. They're seeing that guy walk back on defense. They're seeing that guy settle for jumpers off the dribble instead of shots inside.
This is where you have to conclude that James simply can't do the things he once did, especially if you're a a fan of his, or a defender of his greatness. The alternative—that LeBron could work hard and could set the perfect example for the teammates who need one but is choosing not to—paints him in a far less flattering tone.
It's easy to defend James if he can't play like he used to. It's harder if he won't.
LeBron isn't slowing down by choice but by nature.
There's nothing wrong with that, but we need to call this what it is if we're to rationally predict what James and the Cavaliers will be capable of going forward.
We shouldn't expect the defense to suddenly click. We shouldn't expect James to turn it on whenever he needs to.
And we shouldn't expect the Cavs to become the dominant, title-favorite team so many of us thought they might be before the season started.
The Cavaliers will look terrific on some days and merely average on others. Their inconsistency will be puzzling, even frustrating. All the while, we'll hope they can muster their best selves when it matters. And there will be times when they simply can't.
In other words, they'll be just like LeBron.
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