Feels like the first time: Nick Swisher runs the bases
March 18, 2015Who Believes in Jesus?
March 18, 2015It was bound to happen. LeBron James would start to make too much money, have too much uncertainty surrounding his future, and—gulp—was bound to age beyond a point where his trade value would start to take a hit. Be that as it may, after eight years of having a firm, kung-fu grip on the top spot in Bill Simmons’ annual NBA Trade Value column, the four-time MVP and sometimes headband-wearing forward from Akron, Ohio was bumped to No. 2.
From Simmons:
The 30-year-old budding mogul has already logged more than 42,000 career minutes and played more than 1,050 games (including playoffs). You know what that really means? Apex LeBron is gone. …
The good news: He’s still 85-90 percent as good as that seven-year apex, keeping LeBron’s “best player in the league” ceiling the highest of anyone. I just don’t know where this goes. How long can LeBron stay great or even close to great?
Simmons goes super long (surprise, I know) on history and what James’ historic run means in the context of the rest of the league. He (rightfully) discusses the “insane burden” James has put on his body over the last 12 seasons, including all of those otherwise uncounted minutes that occurred during the various playoff runs—nearly 50,000 combined minutes in total.
Though only 30 years old and possessing one of the most incredible physiques in all of sport, Simmons believes that James has just two more “elite” seasons remaining. And since we’ve buried the lede this far, we may as well share—spoiler alert—that the new No. 1 player is New Orleans’ Anthony Davis. Rookie contract. Freakish skill set. One hell of an eyebrow. He’s one of the great, must-watch players in the league for his ability to change the game on both ends of the floor every second he’s on it.
If you’re not watching Davis any chance you have, you’re only cheating yourself. Good news is, you have plenty of time to make up for your poor decisions. He just turned 22 years old and hasn’t even played 6,500 career minutes—the ultimate differentiator between the best player in the world and one who may very well be in a few years.
9 Comments
SIMMONZ IS A IDIOT HATES CLEVELAND SO WHO CARES GO WATCH UR SUCKY CELTICS AND SUK THUMBS
I’ll make time to read it later but just wanted to set the mood.
In related news, Bill Simmons’ Trade Value column remains at the top of LeBron James’ Who Gives a Flying Fig? column.
This is an example of Simmons love for creating lists of things that mean very little in reality, but make for good bar stool topics. His points on LeBron are both sobering and awe-inspiring. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I often forget just how long the guy has been playing and just how high a level he has maintained. On line in particular really struck me, and I couldn’t agree with it more:
“Young LeBron looked and played like he was 28 already; he’s the surest thing I have ever seen, a true prodigy in every sense.”
Even after him being gone for a time, it’s still easy as a Cavs’ fan to take LeBron James for granted. Enjoy what we have while it’s here, folks.
I’ll wait to read your Cliffs Notes, but I’d say you’re off to a fine start.
I’m more surprised that Lebron isn’t three or four behind Curry and/or Westbrook than anything else.
THIS CAVS BASHING MUST END.
Simmons can be annoying (the ’80s movie and wrestling references stopped being entertaining in, oh, I don’t know, 2003), but I still say that he’s a pretty good basketball analyst, and I agree with everything he said here as well as his article from a few days ago about Irving. I’ve never seen a player make a 27-8-7 line look as pedestrian as James does. Definitely have to enjoy it while we can.
It seriously is unreal.
It’s like everyone is just so used to complaining about the Browns that they just naturally float that way for both the Cavs and Indians.
The only problem with Davis is that he’s already missed more games due to injury than LBJ has his entire career.