Add this to the list of accomplishments LeBron James can add to his illustrious career: competing for another title after his grip on the sport clearly waned.
This, more than anything, will define a season as one of the greatest ever played in which he was still able to postpone the inevitable end, delay time, and try to exploit his abilities even as he played status in the country has declined. Great remaining skill to try and squeeze out one last title shot and silence all of us who might have thought it was too late.
In his prime, LeBron won four championships in three places — including overcoming historical odds and serving the place he loved, Cleveland. He is the game’s all-time leading scorer, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar last season. He currently ranks fourth in assists history. He won four MVP awards and four NBA Finals MVP awards.
However, almost all of this was accomplished as the best or near-best player in the game. This season will be different. That challenge — one he and the Lakers face as he enters his 21st season — may be the most difficult of his career.
Because now, older, wiser, more injury-prone, and less able to single-handedly bend the game to his will, what’s left to do but chase the ring? Try and hopefully take one last title from a brilliant career. And, like other past greats like Kareem or Tim Duncan, he did so when many people dismissed him.
Forget it’s just basketball. Father Time has become another enemy of humility for those seeking to become sports greats. Take the NFL’s Tom Brady, Novak Djokovic from the tennis match the other day, and soccer’s Lionel Messi Messi) for example. Being the best sometimes means dominating, even if many people no longer see you that way.
That’s certainly the case on CBS Sports, where the Kings have dropped to No. 12 overall. Our top 100 players rankings, as voted on by all of our NBA writers. (I put him at No. 9 on my personal list, but the point is that LeBron no longer seems to be the player he once was.)
Now, at least to us, he ranks behind Jokic, Giannis, Steph, Embiid and even Shai.
But that doesn’t mean he’s done, or that we’re right. That’s one of the many things that can be proven or disproved this season.
There are younger, hungrier, more capable foes out there, and the passage of time — the indisputable fact that, as LeBron slowly slides down the pantheon of the game, even for him, the end is coming. To further that goal and show that winning is not out of reach, you have to be part of the goal.
This is a man who feeds off the suspicion of others. He will have a lot to gain this season.
The cracks in LeBron’s steady reign as No. 1 in the league began last season. Although this is the fifth consecutive year he has played fewer than 70 games and the fourth of five years in which he has not cracked the 60-game mark, it is the first time he has been significantly ranked in the CBS rankings. decline. -Season player rankings.
Looking at his five seasons with the Lakers, he ranked No. 7 entering the 2021-22 season after ranking No. 2 a year ago, and No. 1 in each of the three previous seasons.
Yet LeBron has the ability to surprise and turn these rankings, and others like them, into an exercise in underestimating perhaps the best player of all time. This can be seen in part from the following reports: He wants to represent Team USA at next summer’s Olympicsthere are signs that he can make a significant contribution, to say the least.
Last season with the Lakers, LeBron still averaged 28.9 points, 8.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game. My shooting percentage is 50%. In the playoffs, he averaged almost 25-10-7, and despite the importance of Anthony Davis and the depth added by Rob Pelinka at the trade deadline, LeBron was largely helped lead the Lakers to an unexpected berth in the Western Conference. Conference finals.
He may not technically be their best player every time. But he was clearly their most important. AD is younger and can play, yes. But LeBron is the winner of that group.
They were swept by the eventual champion Denver Nuggets, which told both sides of the story: what else LeBron can do, and maybe what he can’t do.
However, in this sport, success is determined by your performance on the court, and if anyone could go back in time and question his place on a top-100 list, it would be LeBron James.
Many believe that the 36-year-old Messi has been washed away at PSG, or at least a shadow of himself. Then he won the World Cup. Now he’s defying the laws of physics in Major League Soccer for Inter Miami. Brady is a great player who can’t pass up after 20 seasons in New England, and after leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl victory over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in 2021, the odds are against him The deciders and everyone are wrong. Carlos Alcaraz, 20, may have been the No. 1 player in the world heading into the U.S. Open just a few weeks ago, but it’s the 36-year-old GOAT who takes the crown again.
So, is it crazy to think that if LeBron has a little bit of luck, AD is healthy, and the Lakers have an interesting offseason, he can’t also be a surprise?
History matters. Sometimes, the past can be a precursor to the present. LeBron James remains a formidable former champion.
The four guys before him on our top 100 list have rings: Jokic has one ring, Giannis has one ring, Steph has four rings and Durant has two rings. But the other seven — Doncic, Embiid, Tatum, Booker, Butler, Lillard and Gilgeous-Alexander — have never won a championship.
We rank LeBron James as the 12th best player in the NBA this season because we think his grip on the game is over. But sports—and the greatest sports of all time—often have a way of making such statements seem absurdly premature.
It would be wonderful if LeBron could do what Messi, Brady and Djokovic have accomplished – making us all rethink the greatness of the GOAT once again.