Tag: LeBron James
Highlights

Breakfast Special: LeBron, D-Wade, and Era Farewells

- by Fox Doucette

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade brought the world four Finals runs in Miami, tons of entertaining basketball, and no small few great matchups as foes when the King toiled in Cleveland. And Monday night, we got the last time the two men will meet on a basketball court in a regular-season NBA game (and no, Wade doesn’t get to be an All-Star. Unless Victor Oladipo stays hurt. Then we can talk.) Of course it was a competitive game. The Lakers won 108-105 to go to 17-10 overall and 11-4 at home. Wade got some extended run off the bench and …

Read More
Highlights

Breakfast Special: Heavy is the Burden on LeBron

- by Fox Doucette

The story of LeBron James‘ career has, with a couple of rare exceptions in Miami where Dwyane Wade was a bona fide Hall of Fame sidekick, been a case of carrying utterly wretched teams further than they have any right to go. Indeed, most of the case for James as the NBA’s greatest of all time hinges on the narrative of “he won a championship with a G-League team in 2016.” (and if you want me to say something nice about Kyrie Irving, you must be new here.) And here he is in Los Angeles, dragging the freaking South Bay …

Read More
Analysis

Re-Opening Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s GOAT Case

- by Fox Doucette

With 10 Finals appearances, six rings, the all-time record for points scored, the second-most games (behind Robert Parish) and most minutes, 6 MVP awards, 19 All-Star games, only one season in his entire career where he was in the top ten in turnovers, tops in history in both offensive and overall Win Shares, an icon for two different franchises, and all of it capped off by the one of the most slam-dunk first-ballot Hall of Fame inductions you’re likely to see? Are we sure Kareem Abdul-Jabbar isn’t still the greatest of all time? After all, when Kareem finally retired in …

Read More
Highlights

Breakfast Special: LeBron Bean Bryant

- by Fox Doucette

So my one-game-sample-size overreaction to the Portland Trail Blazers’ 128-119 win over the Los Angeles Lakers last night could be best describe as “these are the 2006 Lakers, Lonzo Ball is Smush Parker, and LeBron James is Kobe Bryant.” I am reminded why I don’t turn comments on around here. Go follow @RealFoxD if you want to call me an idiot. Seriously, though, Ball is up to his old tricks again, as he shot 28.6 percent from the field and 25 percent from three (2-of-7 and 1-of-4 respectively.) Oh, and he played just 19 minutes because the Lakers got a …

Read More
Summer Reading

Statistical Test: LeBron’s Lakers, By The Numbers

- by Fox Doucette

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are a motley assemblage of who-dats and castoffs, somewhere between a Rucker Park team and a G-League roster, with one of the worst No. 2 overall draft picks ever to lace up the sneakers in an NBA arena and with a Shaqtin’ MVP quite possibly set to be the starting center. But just how bad are the Lakers, really? Well, let’s imagine a world where LeBron James is replaced by a mid-tier starting small forward. Not a G-League replacement, not a guy who couldn’t crack the roster on the 2016 76ers or anything, …

Read More
Editorial

LeBron on the Lakers—What on Kyrie’s flat Earth is he thinking?!

- by Fox Doucette

LeBron James is a Laker. 4 years, $154 million, take-the-money-and-run Los Angeles Tinseltown Lakers. And his supporting cast? Well, he’s just traded the Canton Charge for the South Bay Lakers, with Lonzo Ball, Lance Stephenson, JaVale McGee, and whatever other curios and relics a 35-win team in 2017-18 can drag off the bottom of the ocean off Long Beach and suit up in a Lakers uniform. Paul George re-upped with the Thunder. The Spurs would rather surrender the Alamo than trade Kawhi Leonard to Los Angeles unless it’s to the Clippers. And the Rockets are one Trevor Ariza short of …

Read More
Analysis

The Last Glory of LeBron James

- by Fox Doucette

Once upon a time, I used to be a boxing writer. I covered the sweet science both as a journalist, with ESPN’s old Friday Night Fights show as my beat—a great gig that got me ringside seats in Reno, where I met Teddy Atlas in one of the coolest total-fanboying moments of my life—and as a romanticist, writing historical fiction in the only sport besides maybe baseball where you can do that for a sports news publication and not be thought terribly unusual. (Unless you’re Jon Bois from SBNation. I am not Jon Bois.) And boxing was at the forefront …

Read More
Highlights

Breakfast Special: LeBron James is the GOAT. Discussion Over.

- by Fox Doucette

Michael Jordan‘s run as the Greatest of All Time began on June 14, 1998, when he hit The Last Shot against the Utah Jazz, retired, and officially got past the “no player can be evaluated for his place in history until he is no longer playing the game” rule of historical comparison (we do not talk about the Jordan-era Wizards. They are a figment of the NBA Dark Ages.) And calling Jordan the GOAT was not something to be taken lightly; after all, the previous nine years had seen Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reign in that capacity, and to be better than …

Read More
Highlights

Breakfast Special: The Warriors-Cavaliers Inevitability

- by Fox Doucette

There are two ways you can interpret the Cleveland Cavaliers’ completing their defense of their home court in Games 3 and 4, including Monday’s 111-102 win to draw the series level at two games apiece. Either the Celtics, who have been outstanding at home but utterly putrid on the road in these playoffs (they are now just 1-6 away from Boston in the postseason while they’re 9-0 at home), are headed toward a seven-game series win in which the home team wins all seven games, and therefore there is no reason to panic or even to find anything we’ve seen …

Read More
Analysis

The NBA Greatest of All Time Championship Belt

- by Fox Doucette

Let’s go back to 1946, the foundation of the greatest sports league in the history of competitive athletic endeavor, as the Basketball Association of America. We can argue all day about who the greatest of all time is. Was it Michael Jordan? Magic? Larry? Dr. J? Wilt? Russell? Big O? There are so many greats to choose from, but here’s one man’s view of who, on the day they retired, were the greatest of all time up to that day, going all the way back to 1946: March 22, 1950: Bob Feerick The first guy to shoot over 40 percent …

Read More