NBA Watches as Cleveland’s Boy King Becomes a Man

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All hail the King.


No matter how much we hype him and how may accolades we throw at him, LeBron James still manages to exceed our expectations. In just his third year since turning pro directly out of high school, King James is more than living up to his nickname. The Cleveland forward is averaging 31.1 points per game while shooting 50.1% from the floor – at an age when most players are in their junior year of college.


For the most recent example of James’s magnificence, take his performance Saturday night against Phoenix. Yes, the Cavs lost to the Suns 115-106, but don’t pin this one on LeBron. He was simply awesome, scoring 46 points, handing out eight assists and grabbing seven boards. When one considers the assists, James had a hand in 26 of the Cavs’ 43 field goals on the night.


But anyone can put up points by taking lots of shots and dominating the ball – just ask Kobe Bryant. What was so impressive about James’s performance was how consistently he made the right play and refused to force the action. During the fourth quarter, for instance, it finally dawned on the Suns that they should force somebody else to beat them and they began blitzing Cleveland’s screen-and-roll play with two defenders. And in response, James kept flipping the ball over to Zydrunas Ilgauskas for open jumpers.


As a result, it wasn’t just a typical 46-point night that Kobe or Iverson might put up, which involves taking 35 or even 40 shots. James was super efficient, making 18-of-28 shots from the floor and all five of his free throws. Despite running the team’s offense most of the night, he had only one turnover, and a bogus one at that (a shaky offensive foul call away from the ball thanks to some quality thespian work from the Suns’ Raja Bell). Even on 3-pointers – his alleged liability when he entered the league – he made 5-of-8.


Indeed, Steve Nash might have witnessed the passing of his MVP torch on Saturday. Because while the Suns outlasted Cleveland thanks to a derelict performance from LeBron’s supporting cast – star guard Larry Hughes is sidelined and Cleveland’s reserves shot 5-for-24 – there was no doubt whatsoever who the best player on the court was.


We can see James’s dominance by zooming our lens out a bit and looking at the entire season. Over the course of the year, it becomes clear that James’s performance has been among the league’s best. In fact, using my Player Efficiency Rating (PER), a per-minute rating of a players’ statistical performance, James is at the top of the heap, and by a good distance, too – more than a point and a half ahead of Miami’s Dwyane Wade, and better than Kevin Garnett’s league leading 28.4 mark from last season.


The amazing thing here isn’t just James’s excellence, but his youth. He’s been hyped for so long that it’s easy to forget how young he still is. Remember, he didn’t take his first legal drink until a few weeks ago. At the same age, Michael Jordan was a junior at North Carolina and couldn’t win an NCAA championship, much less carry an team on his back. When Kobe Bryant was 21, he was making his first NBA All-Star team but still clearly a second banana, averaging a modest 22 points per game.


Iverson, Garnett, Duncan … all of them were either in college or still trying to gain traction in their pro careers at 21. But LeBron James, at 21, is quite possibly the best player in the league. This means, of course, that he might not just win the MVP award this year – he might go Gretzky on us and win it every year for a decade or so.


Of course, it’s not a foregone conclusion that James will cart off the MVP trophy this year. Like many younger players, he has one area where he still could improve considerably – defense – and that’s a difficult area for PER to capture.


James is devastating in passing lanes and his size and strength make him virtually impossible to post up. But his effort on the weak side could still use some work – he rarely rotates across to the strong side to break up plays. He also frequently fails to get his hands up on jump shots, as I noted a couple different times in the Phoenix game, which is a shame given how distracting his size can be to shooters. For him to ascend to the Ruthian levels predicted of him, he’ll have to learn to dominate at both ends of the court.


Nonetheless, it’s hard not to be impressed with James’s awesome accomplishments at such a young age. His combination of high-percentage shooting and precision passing has made the Cavs the league’s third-best offense despite a roster that is otherwise shorthanded in the scoring department. As a result, Cleveland is looking at its first playoff appearance in half a decade.


James also announced he’ll suit up for Team USA at the World Championships this summer, immediately making the team the favorites to win the tournament. Somehow, I doubt he’ll be backing up Richard Jefferson this time. But it’s ironic that Larry Brown didn’t take a shine to James in Athens, because few players better define “playing the right way.” With his enormous talent, James could turn every game into a 1-on-5 talent show. Indeed, few 21-year-olds wouldn’t be tempted to put their individual glory ahead of the team.


James’s willingness to share the ball and refusal to dribble out the shot clock put him in marked contrast to some of the game’s other high-scoring wing players, and is doubly amazing when one considers how constantly everyone has fawned over him since his junior year of high school.


And like I said, he hasn’t just lived up to the hype, he’s exceeded it – and he’s still getting better every day. Based on his accomplishments to date, it seems only injury can prevent King James from achieving what increasingly seems to be his destiny. Enjoy the show, folks, because this may very well be the greatest player of all time.



Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast.


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