2023-24 Running NBA thread

Damn, Kevin Love looks like a well-conditioned 55-year-old.

 

It's not just a patch: NBA selling out its LGBTQ referees with puzzling sponsorship deal

I'm not a big NBA guy, but I thought I'd share.

 

I'm probably late to the party on this, but I've become a fan more for his activism about mental health.

 

Looking at the regular season as the playoff start, what LeBron was able to accomplish this season is remarkable. Here's the list of the oldest players to average 25/7/7 in a season:

LeBron, 39 years old
LeBron, 36 years old
LeBron, 35 years old
LeBron, 34 years old
LeBron, 33 years old
LeBron, 32 years old.

He's top 30 in the league in 3-point shooting as a 39-year-old power forward. He shot better on 3s than Steph Curry did this year!

 

I also think that LeBron’s success fools people into thinking that other superstars will hold up as well. What Steph is doing at his age is remarkable, but he’s not going to keep it up for 5 more years. Same with KD

 

No player ever has been - and may never be again - as successful as LeBron has, with the kind of longevity he's had, which speaks to the LeBron/MJ argument. At this point, it generally devolves into a meta-argument about peak greatness vs. consistent greatness. I'll stipulate that Jordan's peak was slightly better than LeBron's, but LeBron's consistency demolishes Jordan's.

Jordan was MVP and DPOY together, which is a huge deal. He did things in the playoffs no one else has yet replicated (as did LeBron, but without the concentrated period of dominance like Jordan had immediately before and after his hiatus). But I think we'll see someone like Jokic or Wemby put together some truly obnoxious future playoff runs, and then it will become a different meta-debate that will solidify with LeBron as the more-or-less generally accepted GOAT.

 

Think about where Chris Paul was just two years ago to where he is now. I can see KD going through a similar quick decline. It's also why the Suns have a two-year window, max, to get this done.

 

KD is an amazing player but he’s nowhere near the player he was in 2020-21

 

Bad times for the Porter family. Jontay is the brother of Michael of Denver Nuggets fame. I don't know if this link works through the paywall but another brother, Coban, just took a plea deal in Denver on a vehicular homicide charge and is looking at eight years.

https://www.denverpost.com/2024/02/08/coban-porter-guilty-dui-crash-denver-basketball/

 

LeBron has also spent the last few years of his career carrying a not exactly outstanding, or even good, team on his back, an endeavor in which Jordan has less than no interest. But Jordan was indeed more dominant in his prime than LeBron was in his. Then again, nobody was more dominant than Russell.