Fansided

LeBron James reminds us he’s still the best player on the planet

By Andrew Tobolowsky

CLEVELAND, OH - APRIL 18: LeBron James runs back on defense after scoring against the Indiana Pacers during the first half of Game 2 of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs at Quicken Loans Arena on April 18, 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - APRIL 18: LeBron James runs back on defense after scoring against the Indiana Pacers during the first half of Game 2 of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs at Quicken Loans Arena on April 18, 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Being way better than other basketball players is weird. So few people, obviously, make the NBA, it’s such rarefied air, it feels like the differences between the players should generally be slight. And sure, a no-doubt starter is going to be considerably better than a guy who bounces around and can’t seem to find a home in the league, but can you imagine being a lot better than everybody? That’s LeBron James.

We know that LeBron James is the best player of his era. We know he might be the best player all-time. We know that, at age 33, in an age when players are playing longer and longer, that he’s already seventh in NBA history in scoring, and 11th in assists. Dirk Nowitzki is one of the greatest scorers of all-time — LeBron may pass him for sixth on the all-time scoring list before Dirk, at the age of 40, passes Wilt for fifth.

We’ve seen him do some ridiculous things. His list of achievements is longer than almost anybody who has ever played, and he’s able to be great at every facet of the game, when he chooses to be. His dominance over the Eastern Conference, for example, is almost unparalleled in the modern era.

And so, having watched LeBron play for as long as LeBron has been playing, I thought that he couldn’t surprise me much anymore. His dominance is striking but never surprising. But watching him play against the Pacers on Wednesday honestly scared me. Honestly. Overall, of course, his line was monstrous — 46 points, 12 boards, 5 assists on seventy percent shooting. But that wasn’t the thing. The thing was the first quarter.

Sixteen seconds into the game, LeBron splashed a jumper. Oladipo turned it over, and LeBron made another one. Another Oladipo turnover, another LeBron jumper. Myles Turner missed a shot. Lebron made a 3. Turner missed another shot, another LeBron jumper. That didn’t continue for a few more shots, it continued for an entire quarter. Bojan Bogdanovic, one of the NBA’s best Bogdanovici, hit a free-throw with 7:43 left to give Indiana it’s first point, making it 13-1, but to that point no one in the game had scored but James.

After he scored his team’s first 16 points, Kevin Love, Kyle Korver, and J.R. Smith made three jumpers. Other people did other things. LeBron made two more. For the rest of the game he was almost ordinary, as if anything he does can be called ordinary, and the game actually ended up pretty close. But it never felt close because LeBron took the first quarter to show that he could get what he wanted whenever he wanted, which never made ‘close’ feel like a difficult problem. I had the feeling that no number the Pacers could be up, going into the fourth, would have been enough.

Next: Becky Hammon is just the start of a revolution

It may be different next game. This is a feisty Pacers team, they have a star of their own in Oladipo. And it was close, after all. But once someone reveals they’re an alien, that they have a different gear than anybody else does, it’s hard to see how it turns out okay — as every Eastern Conference playoff opponent has discovered over the last seven years. It was a virtuoso performance, it was a message performance, and for twelve minutes it was almost a solo performance — the best player in the world showing how much better he is than anyone else in the world. I’m glad I got to see it.

Home/NBA