The King is coming to Los Angeles. LeBron James — the alpha of the NBA and one of the greatest players of all-time — has decided to write the next chapter of his career in purple and gold ink. James joins the Lakers on the heels of one of the greatest individual postseasons in NBA history. During his journey to his eighth-straight NBA Finals, James led the postseason in scoring (34.0), double-doubles (15) and triple-doubles (four), while ranking second in assists (9.0). Yet, somehow, even those colossal numbers don’t fully encapsulate LeBron’s dominance. Though he is listed as a forward, the 6-foot-8, 250-pounder can play any position on the floor thanks to his all-encompassing skill set. His playoff brilliance was mirrored in the regular season, when he ranked third in points (27.5) and second in assists (9.1), while playing all 82 games. His primary weapon is a blend of speed and strength that the NBA had never seen before. A human battering ram, James is nigh-unstoppable with the ball in his hands, shooting a league-high 60.3 percent on drives — 4.9 percent better than second-place Jrue Holiday — and averaging the second-most points in isolation (6.1). He has the entire package when it comes to attacking off the dribble: guard-like handles, pull-ups from mid- and 3-point range, crafty finishes (like hop steps and reverse layups), explosiveness at the rim, ambidexterity and the ability to draw fouls. These skills, plus his world-class court vision (more on that later), make James elite in the pick-and-roll. He ranked among the 91st percentile of ball handlers during the regular season and 90th in the playoffs, based on points per possession. For a Lakers team that struggled with its half-court offense last season, adding LeBron is like finding a vending machine in the desert. While James is unbelievable with the ball in his hands, he will likely spend a good amount of time off the ball, considering the Lakers’ roster features two more gifted passers in Lonzo Ball and Rajon Rondo. Fortunately for L.A., he thrives in those situations as well. He shot 38.3 percent on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers — exactly the kind of looks he figures to get alongside Ball and Rondo. He led the league in points per possession on cuts (1.62), where his feel for the game and pure athleticism shined through. Of course, the Lakers’ offense is about more than half-court production, as they ran the NBA’s second-fastest pace and scored the second-most fast-break points last year. LeBron has never played on a team among the top 10 in pace, which is interesting considering how hopeless it is to try to derail him in transition. Just ask Marcus Morris, who essentially tried to tackle James like the Monstars at the end of “Space Jam,” only to have him still power through for the and-1 bucket. And for as much as Ball loves firing full-court outlet passes, imagine how high his QB rating will be once he has LeBron playing the part of Rob Gronkowski. While James is certainly one of the most impressive scorers in the game, he is every bit as talented as a passer. The Akron native has once-in-a-generation vision, allowing him to make just about every pass in the game. A single player can’t stop James from getting to the rim without a help defender, leaving defenses vulnerable to drive-and-kicks. If even a tiny window is open, he is able to exploit it with a pocket pass. In particular, James is a savant at running pick-and-rolls, using perfectly angled bounce passes to deliver dimes through forests of opposing bodies. And recently, he has become one of the best post passers in the game. This year’s playoffs showed that teams are all about finding and exploiting defensive mismatches. LeBron did this by targeting the slowest big or smallest guard and having that player’s man come set him a screen, forcing the opponent to switch. When a guard had to cover James, he used his superior strength to back them down and get to the rim, even if he started all the way near the 3-point arc. Defenses were forced to start doubling LeBron in the post, and that’s when he set the table for his teammates to feast. Perhaps no player in the history of the game has been better at punishing double-teams than James, who manipulates defenders like pieces on a chessboard. And with unlimited passing range, teams cannot abandon players even on the other side of the floor without conceding a potentially open shot. Teammates like Josh Hart, Kyle Kuzma and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will thrive off looks created by his magnetism for defensive attention. Speaking of LeBron’s teammates, the current roster construction could be one of the most defensive-minded groups that he has ever played with. Last year, the Lakers jumped from last in the NBA in defensive efficiency to 12th. Ball, Hart, Caldwell-Pope, Brandon Ingram and coach Luke Walton had a ton to do with that. They added a ridiculous amount of length over the summer, as Rondo, Lance Stephenson and JaVale McGee have similarly impressive wingspans as Ingram and Ball. This should take some defensive pressure off James and allow him to play free safety, roaming around and causing havoc. And when needed, he is always capable of locking down an opponent or hunting a swat in transition. Fifteen years ago, a teenager named LeBron James made the leap from high school straight to the NBA. Now 33 years old, James not only remains best player in the world, he is somehow still evolving. Last season, he averaged career-highs in assists (9.1), rebounds (8.6) and made 3-pointers (1.8). He has tilted his game more toward post-ups and distributing, and is already elite at both. He is even adding more shots to his arsenal. Step-back 3’s have been falling regularly. His fadeaway jumper — used sparingly by most players — is a new, lethal move that fell at a 52.9 percent rate on 68 attempts during the playoffs. No need to remind the Raptors, who could not stop LeBron as he swept their best team in franchise history while simultaneously taking target practice with his fadeaway. There is no arguing LeBron’s greatness. He is the seventh-leading scorer in NBA history and 11th in assists. He is a three-time champion and Finals MVP, four-time MVP, 14-time all-star and two-time Olympic gold medalist. He is one of the most complete players of all-time, with zero major flaws in his game. He is still at his peak, coming off one of the most impressive individual playoff runs in NBA history, which arguably saw him play the best basketball of his career. We know King James is ready to hold court in L.A. But nobody ever truly knows what feat he will perform next.<doc-sep>5 Up, 5 Down is a column featuring the best and worst from the NBA. We haven’t published this column for some time as we have been gone sunning ourselves outside in the beautiful NBA offseason. But now we are back, and LeBron James is rightly on the West Coast. His decision to join the Los Angeles Lakers felt all but inevitable, and even if it doesn’t quite have the basketball impact many are hoping for when it comes to the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets, it’s still the biggest story of the summer. It seems like LeBron coming to California is a big deal, but if we are to believe that he doesn’t have a real chance of tipping the Warriors or rockets in the postseason, I’m not sure it actually has an appreciable difference on how we view the regular season. The Lakers always get talked about — as does James — so combining them is almost becomes more of an ease of access thing for NBA media. I kid, of course, but if we have to seriously listen to people pontificate all season about why LeBron can’t make the NBA Finals this year with a roster that includes JaVale McGee and Lance Stephenson, that’s another thing. No doubt some of us are headed that way no matter what, so I suppose we should just tuck in for the ride. So without further ado. 5 Up Kawhi isn’t a Laker As with most Millennials, I am firmly in the camp of players having more control over their destiny in the NBA. But something about this Kawhi Leonard thing … just isn’t right. It all started a while back when we heard rumors about Leonard drinking nothing but alkaline water, which is something that only gets sold on Instagram promoted feeds and in the types of grocery stores where the hot bar is $15.99 a pound. That seemed harmless enough, but we really haven’t talked about how Leonard and his “people” keep pushing him into a direction away from the league’s best franchise. Set aside all of the weirdness with Tony Parker and how the Spurs managed his injury over the course of last season: it now it seems like there might always be serious distance created by those advisors between Leonard and whatever team he may be on. If you are the Los Angeles Lakers or any other team looking at Leonard, I think there are several things to look at. It’s not just about his injury history, and it’s not about trying to make the right swap that keeps your roster mostly intact. It’s also examining the people that are around Leonard and what kind of things they’re going to put into his ear next. I’m sure I will be proven wrong about all of this in 20 years when Leonard’s book comes out, but in the meantime it definitely seems like such a stark turn it’s hard to ignore the “hidden advisor” aspect of this whole thing. Plus, the NBA is not better when the Los Angeles Lakers are good. LA hasn’t won more than 40 games since 2013 and in that time the association has taken off. Don’t @ me. Trade him to the Clippers. DeMarcus Cousins is a Warrior This move is all kinds of weird on paper, but it makes sense for both parties involved and I am okay with it. First, Cousins gets to try to rehabilitate not only his image as a franchise player, but his playing ability when it comes to being offered a max contract in the summer of 2019. For Golden State, it’s worth the risk if Cousins comes back toward the end of the season and plays dominant basketball or some semblance of the way he did before his Achilles tear. That makes Golden State even more ridiculous, and perhaps pushes us toward the league finding a way to stop guys taking discounts in their primes to load up on one team. Plus, if you are a Warriors hater there is like a 30% chance that DeMarcus will torpedo the Golden State locker room. All the weirdo guys the Lakers signed We all agree that every Lakers signing works toward the goal of creating a reality show and not an NBA team, right? Next year will not be about basketball for LeBron James. What a Lakeshow. Paul George staying in OKC Every single person cannot go to the Lakers, and as the Thunder moved towards trying to keep their own players it only made sense that they were going to offer Paul George a massive contract like the one he signed. The Thunder will be able to duck some of their luxury tax filings with the Carmelo Anthony move, but still Oklahoma City will carry a massive cap figure as they battle for a middle place finish in the Western Conference. It sort of reminds me about those early 2000s Portland Trail Blazers teams that were always over the luxury tax and getting walloped by the Lakers or the Spurs in the playoffs. It’s truly a beautiful thing to watch a ownership group set a bunch of money on fire for a Game 5 elimination in the second round. Good for George, and too bad for the Thunder. They won’t have a lot of maneuvering space and I’m not sure getting back Andre Roberson will be enough to counteract the rest of the improvements made in the Western Conference this offseason. Chris Paul has a gigantic contract If you are a Rocket hater you should probably love the Chris Paul contract. It’s massive, and although it keeps Houston in contention for the next couple of years alongside the Golden State Warriors, it also means that the Rockets will be laden with Paul’s contract as he continues to age. Remember, Paul is a player who had knee surgery a decade ago and there are serious doubts about whether he can make it through an entire season — or postseason — without taking on a serious injury. Houston can play beautiful basketball when they are in the regular season. But in the playoffs this year, they became the same old story. Watching James Harden and Paul use gamesmanship to grab 35 fouls per quarter was boring as hell, and I’m not going to root for it. The regular season Rockets are fun, but the postseason version isn’t. Paul’s decline is likely coming soon, which should save us from having to watch Playoff Houston for too much longer. 5 Down LeBron James is a Laker This was both the wackest way possible for LeBron James to end his tenure in Cleveland while simultaneously being the most obvious. The supposition here, especially with the current Lakers roster, is that James is waving the white flag against the Warriors and the Rockets, allowing them to take over the basketball side of the postseason while he takes on more of a brand focus. That’s fine, and Los Angeles certainly is a good place to do that. There is no arguing that, it’s just that now that James is in LA it’s going to make Lakers fans feel as though their team is relevant again. Let’s be clear: not even good teams in the NBA are relevant. The Lakers aren’t a good team, even with James on them. There is an 80% chance LA is a complete tire fire next year, which will be fun to watch if you aren’t from Glendale. I’m not saying the Milwaukees and Phoenixes of the world need to be given a fair shake. I’m just not conceding that LeBron in LA is cool in any way. I suppose this move to California doesn’t matter given that LeBron’s legacy is already set. Even if he plays out the entirety of this next contract with the Lakers, no one will ever think of him as a Laker first. He’s always going to be a Cavalier, then a Heat, then a Laker. It’s weird that moving to Los Angeles, given all of its benefits, won’t have an impact on LeBron’s legacy. If he wins a championship, then we can talk. Las Vegas Summer League<doc-sep>LeBron James and Magic Johnson put their heads together and think of something. (AP) If, in the hours after LeBron James announced he would join the Los Angeles Lakers, you found yourself wondering what in the hell, exactly, the Lakers were doing by rounding out their roster with the likes of Lance Stephenson, JaVale McGee and Rajon Rondo … well, you were not alone! The run of post-LeBron additions seemed like a 180-degree change in direction from the sort of roster-building we’ve seen generate the most successful lineups around James over the past handful of years: lights-out shooters and physical defenders who can contribute off the ball while LeBron runs the show. After making one such signing that sort of fit the bill — re-upping ostensible 3-and-D shooting guard (and fellow Klutch Sports Group client) Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for $12 million — the Lakers then inked a spot-minutes big man who needs a tightly defined role and two players who aren’t shooting threats, and whose primary contributions have always come with the ball in their hands. Even if team president of basketball operations Magic Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka had anticipated not being able to land two marquee stars this summer — a possibility that became much more likely when Paul George decided to stay put in Oklahoma City — this couldn’t have been the game plan, right? It is, in fact, the plan that LeBron and Magic cooked up Well, according to Brian Windhorst and Ramona Shelburne of ESPN … yes. Yes, it was the plan, the one that James and Johnson sketched out during the hours-long meeting on the eve of free agency that sealed LeBron-to-L.A.: one in which James will play a “vastly different” style of basketball than he did in Cleveland on “a team stocked with tough-minded playmakers” on the wing who will push the pace and allow LeBron to move closer to the basket and play “from the post,” like “Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan [did] as they approached their mid-30s.” More from Windhorst and Shelburne: The Cavs were a team of specialists — many of them shooters — who were placed around the league’s ultimate Swiss Army knife. But at times, especially during the playoffs, it did have the feel that James was playing 1-on-5 and needing to play 48 minutes because he was the team’s only true creator and playmaker. […] Story continues “I know some people are rolling their eyes but I like what the Lakers have done,” a rival Western Conference executive said. “You can find shooters. They’ve taken some in the last few drafts. Playmakers matter and are harder to find.” Maybe this is a new way to get LeBron more help It is inarguable that the Cavaliers’ chances of winning were almost singularly defined by James’ availability and production. It was true this past season, when no iteration of Cleveland’s roster featured a bankable secondary ball-handler and facilitator, and when Tyronn Lue’s club needed LeBron to average better than 41 minutes per game in the first and third rounds of the Eastern Conference playoffs to win seven-game nail-biters against the Pacers and Celtics just to get back to the Finals. It was even true the year before, when the Cavs outscored their opponents by 7.7 points per 100 possessions when James played and — even with a healthy Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love — got outscored by 8.5 points-per-100 when LeBron sat. James definitely bristled at times under that creative burden in Cleveland — recall, if you will, his complaints that the Cavs were “top-heavy as s***,” and that they needed “a f*****g playmaker” — and at times wound up damn near entirely gassed in the postseason. It would stand to reason that, as he moves into his mid-30s, he would want to operate on a team where somebody else (and perhaps even multiple somebodies!) could be capable of creating quality scoring chances and handling the ball, so that he didn’t have to do it all, all the time. And after past team-ups with a wide variety of ball-handling colleagues — Irving, Dwyane Wade, Isaiah Thomas, George Hill, Jordan Clarkson, and so on — have met with widely varying success on both an individual and team basis, maybe changing the framework of the partnership makes sense; instead of your-turn-my-turn on the wing, maybe having James more frequently stationed inside alters the geometry of the court and the tenor of the defense enough to help things run more smoothly through multiple creators. “Playing more like Bryant and Jordan will take time and patience and James told Johnson that some habits will be hard to break, sources said,” wrote Windhorst and Shelburne. “But James knows moving to playing more inside and giving up some control of the ball is important as he ages and his athleticism starts to fade.” Will LeBron really stick to this shift when the going gets tough? I don’t doubt that this conversation happened, or the reporting on it. It’s completely reasonable that James would have input in the design of the roster he’d be joining, and I fully believe that a player as smart as LeBron realizes that even a superhuman specimen can’t expect to hold up precisely the same way with 54,000-plus NBA minutes on his body as he has in the years spent building up that workload. It’s just that … well, we’re going to have see all these changes stick to believe they will, right? Cavs fans when they hear Lebron will play faster, play off ball, play the 4 and focus on defense pic.twitter.com/Acr0R2hxKf — sam esfandiari (@samesfandiari) July 5, 2018 LeBron’s teams have never played fast; like Chris Paul, he prefers to orchestrate in the half-court, move the pieces around the chessboard to identify the specific matchup he wants to exploit, and set up the preferred play two or three passes ahead. I’m skeptical that the Lakers are going to get anywhere near last year’s third-place ranking in pace factor with LeBron leading the way, no matter how much head coach Luke Walton wants to push the ball down the court. LeBron might nominally line up at power forward, and even serve at times as a point-center, working with his back to the basket on offense to take advantage of his size and prodigious passing gifts. Over the course of a full season, though, he’s just about always done so flanked by another forward who serves as a functional four on the defensive end of the court — Shane Battier, Richard Jefferson, Jeff Green, Jae Crowder, et al. — to save his body the beating of banging with bigger guys for big minutes all year long. Whether Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma can play that sort of defensive sin-eater role very much remains to be seen. Maybe it will all pan out. Maybe all of L.A.’s holdover young players and incoming vets will shoot better than nearly all of us expect them to, and a Lakers team built around James working like some unholy combination of Karl Malone and Arvydas Sabonis out of the post will introduce a fresh new style of high-efficiency offense into the NBA ecosystem. Maybe it’ll keep more tread on LeBron’s tires while also providing the Lakers with a remixed version of the return to Showtime their fans have been dying to see. This just seems to be a lot more “maybes” heading into a season than we’ve typically associated with a LeBron James-led team at this stage in the summer. The idea of relieving LeBron of primary playmaking responsibility more frequently as an energy-saving mechanism makes sense. But if the natural outgrowth of it is a vision in which the best version of the Lakers is one in which LeBron handles the ball less so Lance Stephenson and Lonzo Ball can handle it more … well, again, I’ll believe that when I see it in practice, and that LeBron’s really on board with it when he stays with it even after watching kickout after post-up-kickout pass result in a clang, a defensive rebound and a runout the other way. More NBA coverage: – – – – – – –<doc-sep>
The Lakers’ offseason has been a roller coaster of emotions, one that’s brought the whole league along for the ride. That’s what happens when LeBron James changes teams. But L.A. isn’t done making waves this summer. With Kawhi Leonard still in limbo, the Lakers still in possession of a moderate amount of cap space, and fit questions up and down the roster, there’s still plenty to sort out over the coming weeks. Here are the nine biggest questions. --- 1. What position will LeBron play? LeBron has spent the past few seasons in Cleveland playing an amorphous point-forward role with a usage rate that always ranked among the league’s highest. We’ve grown accustomed to seeing him orchestrate and execute everything on offense, oftentimes in spite of the players around him. The Lakers, on the other hand, are looking to take the load off. Based on a report by ESPN on Thursday, it appears that the Lakers are planning for LeBron to migrate toward the rim on offense, not away from it, in L.A. The goal is reportedly for James to become more of a post player who finishes and facilitates, rather than a primary playmaker. As a viewer, that’s a bit disheartening; LeBron with a Sisyphean task creates the best entertainment the league has to offer. But the King, despite coming off of maybe his best season yet, will be 34 in December and will likely need to make adjustments to avoid crashing and burning from injuries like the last Lakers Hall of Famer. You can’t blame LeBron for wanting to do a little less, considering his workload last postseason. It’s fair to wonder, though, if he has the team to allow him to actually do less. 2. How will the Lakers’ style of play change? The Lakers’ goal, it appears, is to be the antithesis of Cleveland. Instead of targeting shooters, Magic Johnson is going after playmakers and defense-first veterans. It’s a sensible strategy on paper, but it also feels a little more risky than it should. After playing at a rapid pace the past two seasons under Luke Walton, the Lakers want to slow it down to a speed of LeBron’s liking. It makes sense to cater to James, just as it made sense to go faster to play to the strengths of a younger team. But the transition process could produce some growing pains, especially for the young players on this team, should they stick around. Playing slower also means efficiency will be more of a priority—fewer possessions, etc.—and some of the additions the Lakers made don’t exactly scream that. JaVale McGee can be efficient, but he’s also erratic at times. Rajon Rondo can set up others for efficient shots. And Lance Stephenson—well, there are times when his efforts work out, I suppose, but he’s not reliable by any means. If there’s a silver lining here it’s that Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, and Brandon Ingram could outplay their elders and win those starting spots around LeBron. That would make for an inexperienced team, sure, but one that might have a much higher ceiling. 3. Can Luke Walton handle the Meme Team locker room? Adding Lance, JaVale, and Rondo to a team with Lonzo, Ingram, and Kuzma, with LeBron lording over all of them, feels like a reality TV show. Let’s get an NBA Hard Knocks going. The onus to coach this smorgasbord of a roster falls on the 38-year-old Walton, who was drafted the same year as LeBron and is now going into his third season as Lakers head coach. Walton, a players’ coach, is going to become a juggler on a tightrope—catering to LeBron, developing the young players, and keeping the motley crew of one-year guys engaged. According to one report, LeBron hasn’t yet met with Walton and didn’t meet with him at all throughout the recruiting process. I want to say that’s not something to read into, but we also have enough precedent to know that LeBron isn’t shy about letting his coaches know how he feels in unspoken ways. 4. Where, oh where, will the shooting come from? As it stands, the Lakers’ best shooters on the roster are sophomore Kuzma and rookie Moe Wagner. Less than ideal.