Lol? The only reason LeBron game hasn't fallen off a cliff is because of the superior PEDs available to him. I'd be shocked if he's even a top 30 player in the league during the '19-20 season

LMAO. Yeah it's pretty scary. His peak duration is definitely unprecedented. He'll never have GOAT resume because of Finals record but damn, he's still clearly the best player in the world and it's his 15th year in. Most guys are out of the league or a shell of themselves at that point.

But in a competitive environment when the talent of the average players increases, then it becomes that much harder to dominate.

That's only two seasons away. He'll be top 30 still.

Agreed

1. MJ
2. Magic
3. Kobe
4. CP2
5. Russell
6. Horry
7. Labronze

When you were young there was nothing else to do. Playing pickup is awful training. I know teenagers who are working out in gyms every single day and training basketball drills several nights a week. They'd wreck you. And they would have wrecked teenage version of you even worse.

Also they're on roids and they actually workout. Your pickup games at the park were trash.

These

LeBron is getting better because hes improving as a shooter. If that keeps happening and he eventually stops relying on bullyball and shoulder smashes its possible that like 38yo will be his peak. Also roids and doping.

We had video games and TV. But we also had parents that let us go out into the world and come home for dinner without hawking over us.

Well, no on time-traveling LeBron breaking Wilt's scoring record. Like, he's not even the best scorer in the league right now and never has been really.

Regarding NBA athleticism today vs. 80's-90's. How much more "athletic" is the average NBA player now than say 1990? I think you teenyboppers are confusing 1990 with 1890.

Let's look at one example: Usain Bolt. INSANE outlier when it comes to 100m time. He is essentially custom built to destroy sprint records. 9.58 second 100 meter time.

In 1990, the world record up to that point was 9.92 seconds. This is a reduction in time by about 3%.

This is probably the most extreme example possible -- crazy outlier in an event that is literally 100% pure athleticism. And in Jamaica sprinting is the thing. Sprinters are celebrities. Bolt is a genetic freak, built like a cyborg for sprinting, and an entire country's resources were poured into him to make him as fast as possible.

He is 3% better than the best sprinter from 1990. And some of these gains are obviously due to improved track surfaces (so it's not all innate athleticism), and improved drugs and training methods.

So would it be pretty reasonable to say that (assuming NO dilution of talent across teams by increased number of roster spots) the average NBA players' level of athleticism today is somewhere under 3% better than it was in 1990?

If the answer is "no", show me how you calculated your estimate.

there's just way more money in it now. my buddy that played college ball helps run camps that run ALL YEAR with kids from 6yrs old through freshman in highschool. its his full time job to train kids and those camps are PACKED every session. those kids aren't going out to the local playground to play on rusted hoops with no nets.

Also, hate to break it to the Bieber fans but human evolution does not take place on a scale less than 30 years.

lebron is a mutant. bo jackson had an even freakier build x athleticism. i dont think hes roiding during the season.

In the 30 years ive been watching sports the two greatest competitors ive ever seen are Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas. Those two guys were psychotic too. I mean we're talking about millionaires that were willing to die on the court to win. Lebron doesn't even come close to this level. The Mavs series alone actually disqualifies him from this discussion forever. In his defense tho, this is a different era where State Farm commercials are more important than winning.

Yep, I have a few friends in the biz too. It's crazy how far the specialization has come. It's just competitive evolution though. Any competitive endeavor with a substantial monetary prize (college scholarships, pro salaries, endorsements etc) is just going to get more and more competitive and pump out better and better products over time.

Yeah back when I was coming up it was pretty rare for a kid to have a "work out guy". Now any kid half way serious about basketball has a "work out guy". My cousin has a kid who is 14 and will be lucky to be the 8th man on a decent high school varsity team and even his sorry ass has a "work out guy" haha. It's just the way it is now.

I think Lebron is a big time competitor. He wants to win really bad. I think the biggest thing with the Mavs series is that Lebron just got in his own head. What happened in the Mavs series never happened before that or after it so it was obviously just a fluke. Remember that that the '07 Pistons Series and the '08 Celtics series were both years before the Mavs series. I honestly just think that the Mavs took a couple things away from him and instead of forcing the issue he deferred to Wade. Wade and 'Bron had a talk over the summer and Wade told 'Bron that he had to be the man to take the team as high as they could go and that he needs to stop worrying about deferring to him. Guys just have a bad series sometimes. It happens. Magic had his "Tragic Magic" series where he pretty much pulled a JR and ran the clock out on a final possession. There wasn't a bigger competitor than him either.

Another big reason for all the specialization is because sports has really become gentrified. I read an article on this a little while ago.

A lot of these kids coming into the league now come from families with athletic backgrounds and they're just breeding them in a lab at the age of 10 like you guys say. But there are less guys coming from humble beginnings or guys found at a pickup game. These kids are basically going pro at age 10 now.

Mitchell, Tatum, Simmons, Fox, Brown, etc

Just seems like unless you get "discovered" at a young age, you are at a huge disadvantage now compared to past era's.

You make some great points and I'm one of those that feel like it's not as big of a gap as people make it out to be especially at the high end. Sure there are some un-athletic stiffs from the 70s and 80s that couldn't play today but you can say the same about some players today if you're comparing them to players 40 years in the future.

Yeah I really think that it's just that the game is to the point where you have to be a world class athlete to have any success in it now. The top end hasn't changed much it's just the lower end and role players are so much closer to their higher end contemporaries than the same guys back in the 70s and 80s

Yep, all good points as well

Imagine thinking improvement from 9.9 to 9.6 seconds is a linear 3 percent. Couldn’t be me

I think the fact the best player plays in the significantly inferior conference actually masks this more than people think.

Rolelplayers are just more valuable now with the increased offensive efficiency, there's more good players on every team as well. Coaches a lot better now too. Team building is better.

The edge of having the best player right now is smaller than it was 10-20-30 years ago. It's just there is this extreme outlier where the best player has been on good teams and only having to beat like the 7th best team in the league to make the finals. But I think going forward, the top 3-4 guys in the league won't dominate as much as they normally would unless they form GS-type teams.

And obviously it's still very important, just slightly less so.

This just in: Usain Bolt is so fast time is non-linear and we have to use special relativity to calculate the true difference between 9.9 to 9.6.

It's hilarious the lengths you guys will go to to hold onto your biases. You're now arguing against the laws of mathematics.

The biggest Lebron myth ever is that "he's not really a scorer". I think what people should really be saying is that "he's not really a chucker". No, he's never going to make the wrong basketball play so he can score but he's one of the most elite and efficient scorers ever from a non big position. I laugh at people that call LeBron a "stat padder" because the dude has given up thousands of points already in his career to try and make the plays that are best for his team and not what's going to add to his stats.

He has a scoring title. He has the longest streak in NBA history of 25ppg or higher seasons at 14. From seasons 3-7 he basically was a 30 ppg scorer. He has the playoff FGM record, scoring record and will most likely retire as the all-time leading scorer in NBA history. He has a bunch of other high leverage situation scoring records like highest ppg in playoff elimination games and game sevens. If it was his goal during his career to have seasons where he averaged 35+ I think he could've easily done it. That's not what he's about though. Lebron can call his number in any era he just chooses to not be full throttle on the scoring lever at all times.