With the rise of a new generation of strong teams, traditional powerhouse teams in the league have experienced varying degrees of decline in their dominance this season. Teams in the East that had high win rates in recent years, such as the Bucks, 76ers, and Heat, have fallen out of the top tier. In the West, several prestigious teams are also struggling, with the Warriors and Suns having win rates below 50%, and the Clippers and Lakers experiencing ups and downs with unstable performance. Especially the Lakers, despite maintaining a decent record at 20 wins and 17 losses, ranking seventh in the West, fans who watch the games know that the Lakers struggle to win and lose decisively. Most victories are narrow, and once they lose, they completely collapse without any resistance. In a recent game, they suffered a 24-point defeat at the hands of the Spurs.
According to statistics, this is already the seventh game this season where the Lakers have lost by a margin of 20 points or more. In the previous two seasons under coach Ham, the Lakers only lost six games by a margin of 20 points or more. Why does the Lakers always suffer big defeats? This has something to do with their lineup. The team has few players with independent offensive capabilities, and most of the ball possession is controlled by James and Davis, with a significant gap between the third player Reeves and All-Star level players. Moreover, the Lakers' defensive capabilities are lacking, and the head coach's tactical arrangements are not appropriate. They use infinite switching defense, which inevitably leads to a defensive collapse in the paint once Davis is pulled outside. Now, James is also a defensive weakness, after all, he is 40 years old and cannot devote all his energy to defense during the game.
On the offensive end, James, compared to the past few years, seems somewhat powerless this season. His average score has dropped to 23.7 points, the lowest value except for his rookie season, and he often scores less than 20 points in a single game. As James himself said, he won't play for too long, maybe one or two more years, and he won't retire until his body completely breaks down. It must be said that James' career has been legendary enough, being able to stay at the peak for more than 20 years with an all-around performance in various data. In 23 years, he surpassed the legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the league's all-time scoring champion, and in 24 years, he broke the 40,000-point mark in regular-season total scoring, officially completing the "411 project." As long as James has not retired, his various records will continue to extend and be refreshed.
This season, James has the opportunity to achieve a milestone of great value, which is his career total score (regular season score + playoff score) is about to break through the 50,000 mark. After the last game against the Spurs, James' regular-season total score reached 41,279 points, and his playoff total score was 8,162 points, with a career total score of 49,441 points, just 559 points away. James is about to achieve another historic feat. Calculated based on his current season average of 23.7 points, it will take less than 24 games to reach this record, which should be in the middle to late regular season. Only 559 points away! An NBA god-level record is born, unparalleled before and after, but you are indeed getting older. The current James is the first in regular-season total scoring history and also the first in playoff total scoring history.
This is why it is said that James' 50,000-point record is unparalleled before and after. Among active players, almost no one can catch up with James in this statistic. Speaking solely of playoff total scoring rankings, even Jordan, ranked second in history, has less than 6,000 points, more than 2,000 points behind James. Other active players' regular-season total scores don't even reach 30,000 points, with Durant following James at 29,683 points. Of course, if we look at age, the current Doncic and the young James at the same age have similar scoring progress, but Doncic definitely won't play until he's in his 40s. Doncic can't guarantee that he will be at his peak every year and remain injury-free. It can be seen from his physique management that Doncic is not as disciplined a player as James.
However, it must be admitted that James is indeed getting older now. The data media Basketball Reference listed the On-Off values of each player in the league this season (the comparison of the team's hundred-round positive and negative values when the player is on or off the court, the higher the value, the greater the impact on the team), with James ranking fifth from the bottom in the NBA at -11.4. Sometimes you can see James making consecutive mistakes on the court, unable to keep up with the defense, and showing dejected body language. For fans, whether James can win another championship is no longer the most important thing; what matters is being able to watch more of James' games, as his career time left is not much. NBA veteran Gilbert Arenas talked about James, saying, "People want 40-year-old Jordan to play, but they demand that 40-year-old James win a championship." What do you think? How many more seasons will James play?
