Iron struck: The moment has come when LeBron can no longer hide the signs of age - Walla! sport

2021-11-08T12:49:37.069Z

LeBron had every reason to come fresh for the season, but the injuries he carries remind him that Iron Man also has an expiration date. The five most disturbing trends in the NBA

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Iron struck: The moment has come when LeBron can no longer hide the signs of age

LeBron had every reason to come fresh for the season, but the injuries he carries remind him that Iron Man also has an expiration date.

Lillard has plenty of reasons to resent Portland, but his musculoskeletal problems hurt him as well.

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After more than 50,000 thousand minutes on the floor, his body also begins to signal.

LeBron (Photo: GettyImages, Ronald Martinez)

LeBron's injuries

The Lakers' passing season ended on June 4th. It's later than usual for a team that was relegated in the first round, but earlier than usual for LeBron James, who thanks to qualifying for nine finals in ten years finished just one season in the last decade earlier. Compared to the minimal post-bubble break, this time LeBron had a long break to rest and prepare for a new season. Therefore, it is even more disturbing that after such a break he opens the first weeks of the season with two injuries. Russell Westbrook arrived, among other things, to allow the two Lakers stars to be careful with injuries, but meanwhile the Lakers managed to lose twice to the appallingly weak Oklahoma City in games where King James was absent and snatched a defeat from Portland in a game that Anthony Davis also left early. Frank Vogel's patched staff struggled to make ends meet even when the three stars were healthy, it's hard to see him surviving a period without LeBron.

It may be time to get used to a new reality when it comes to the Iron Man's ability to stay on the floor.

LeBron is ranked fifth all-time in the number of minutes in the regular season with over 50,000, all players who have passed the 50,000-minute mark are those who have experienced a significant drop in ability in the last year-two-three of their careers.

LeBron is also the only player in history with more than ten thousand minutes of playoffs, and those are more intense minutes than the regular season.

All his minutes he played as the main ball carrier in his team, the player through whom everything goes.

It can be said that in the history of the NBA there is no player whose body has gone through what LeBron's body has gone through, who has accumulated mileage of this magnitude.

When he plays he still looks great, one of the best players in the world, the question is whether we have reached a stage in his career where it will be much harder for his body to hold entire seasons, and more importantly - to hold an entire playoff.

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The plot will get even more complicated.

Lillard (Photo: GettyImages, Tim Nwachukwu)

Dame's desire

Portland is in the trap of a team with a disgruntled star: it needs success to convince the star it is worth staying, but that success depends very much on that star.

And in the case of the Blazers, the star has not been functioning since the start of the season.

Even after the recovery against the Lakers' remnants, Damien Lillard scores 18.5 points per game on 35.1 percent from the field and 24.7 percent from three, he reaches the penalty line just 3.4 times per game.

It is very difficult to succeed when it comes to the numbers of your franchise player.

Portland is healthy for a change, but the top five that were one of the best in the league last year provide extremely mediocre output this year.

The luck of the Blazers is that the unsparking bench turns out to be effective, especially Larry Nance and Anferni Simmons, who are two of the three players with the best defensive ratings on the team (the third is Joseph Norkich, as usual).

Bottom line, Portland is faltering and inconsistent at the start of the season, which does not add to Dame's confidence in his team.

Alternative explanations for Lillard's and the group's difficulties can be found. The league has moved to a new ball that creates a problem without a few senior players, he is not the only one who experienced a drastic drop in shooting percentage at the start of the season. New coach Chonsi Billups assimilates new methods on both sides that take time to learn and perfect, this is especially true for a defense that has undergone a very big change and performs aggressive traps that when performed unskilled lead to easy shots by the opponent. But that's exactly the problem with the Blazers and Lillard's situation: any mishap will lead to the question of whether Dame is happy and whether it's better for the team to look for a trade for him. It's hard to assess Lillard's desire level, he's never been a particularly extroverted player. But the fact is that after a summer in which he criticized the management and came very close to asking for a trade, he came into the season with a lower level of readiness than usual and very rare for one of the stable anchors in the league in recent years. If there is no improvement soon the situation will get even more complicated.

Short break, long repercussions.

Yannis (Photo: GettyImages, John Fisher)

The erosion of the teams that have come a long way in the playoffs

After the bubble playoffs there were many complaints about the short break of the teams that got far, eventually all four teams that reached the finals the areas crashed the following season, physically and / or mentally.

The summer there were far fewer complaints, but this time too the break was very short.

The last game between Phoenix and Milwaukee took place less than three months before the start of the current season, and if that was not enough then three key players from both teams immediately joined the American team in Tokyo.

Towards the current season there is not enough talk about the possibility that this year too the short break will affect the teams that reached the later stages of the playoffs, their chances of success did not take enough account of physical and mental burnout.

By the first few weeks of the season, there is definitely such an impact. None of the four teams that have reached the regional finals are looking good, any for their own reasons, and their joint balance as of Sunday is 18:17 negative. Milwaukee is suffering from an early injury blow and in some of the games Yannis Antocompo was the only top five player to play, particularly troubling are the injuries of Jero Holliday and Brock Lopez; Phoenix squeaked at the start of the season, Chris Paul may be the player the short break will hurt him most of all, but is already showing signs of recovery (the investigation into owner Robert Sarber certainly does not contribute to the atmosphere); Atlanta looks mentally tired and does not mention the fresh bunch that teamed up in the playoffs, its defense is one of the weakest in the league so far; The Clippers are mostly suffering from Kwai Leonard's injury, but also injured Marcus Morris and the playoff stars other than Paul George are having a hard time recovering the ability, the result is an anemic attack that is based too much on George's abilities. Each situation separately seems solvable,But together it is hard not to think about the effect of the short break and to be troubled by the fate of the four finalists from the bubble the following season.

A powerful and disappointing crash.

Michael Porter Jr. (Photo: GettyImages, Justin Ford)

Michael Porter Jr.

The 23-year-old Denver forward finished last season as a superstar: After the All-Star break he scored 22.3 points per game on 56.4 percent from the field, including 3.1 3-pointers per game on a staggering 46.4 percent. His height (2.08 m) allows him to score very high percentages with shots with close guards that for almost any other player will be considered particularly difficult. In the summer he received a superstar contract, a maximum five-year contract worth between $ 145 and $ 172 million. Jamal Marie's injury has made Porter the superstar of Nikola Jokic, and ahead of the season expectations from him were sky high. That's why his crash is so powerful and disappointing. In his first nine games he scored 9.9 points per game in 35.9 percent from the field and 20.8 percent from three, in the last game he also injured his back and when preparing the article it is not clear what the severity of the injury is. Denver is struggling to cope with the collapse of the MPJ, its offense is ranked 26th in the league at the moment and the defense is the one holding it.

What happened to Porter? It is possible that he is also one of the victims of the new ball and that he too will get used to it over time. But the feeling is that it is far beyond a shooting crisis. Rivals begin to get to know him, prepare for his unique abilities and take advantage of his monotony. Rival coaches prefer to place low and agile guards in front of him, ones who will cling to him in a way that will not allow him to shoot at all. They are not afraid of his post game, neither his penetration ability nor his delivery ability, and he gives no reason to be afraid. It is therefore also easy to make substitutions in the blocks he receives and the main goal of the defense is to stay close to him at all times. Porter's weak opening also highlights the lack of synchronization between him and Jokic, the great light of the Nuggets' attack. He is not a successful partner for Pick n 'Roll, neither as a blocker nor as a ball carrier, nor does he specialize in movement without a ball to the ring even though he sometimes recognizes such opportunities. His defense improves, but is far from good enough to justify his status when he does not hurt the offense.His match for Denver seems less and less successful with each passing game.

To go through a makeover like Ambide, one must first have willpower.

Zion (Photo: GettyImages, Christian Petersen)

Everything to do with New Orleans

Although there are four particularly distinct tanking teams this year, the worst balance in the league right now belongs to a team desperate for success. New Orleans looks very bad in every aspect of the present on the way to a 9: 1 balance, and the bigger problem is that the promising future is also already in doubt. It starts, of course, with a trailing injury to Zion Williamson. Management has dulled the severity of the situation during the preparation period, but as the season progresses it becomes clear that Zion needs a longer recovery time from the surgery he underwent in the summer in the foot. This brings back to the center of the stage the debate over its weight. A player with dimensions like his is very prone to injuries, in quite a few cases promising careers have not developed at all because of this. The first years of Zion are very disturbing from a health point of view. There are precedents for players who have managed to overcome a difficult health opening, the most notable example being that of Joel Ambide, but there is also a big question mark about the level of motivation of Zion to rehabilitate and maintain his body at the required level.

The Pelicans' problems do not end with their star. The staff built around Zion again looks incoherent and mostly not good. Brandon Ingram mentions that he also tends to get injured, most of the acquisition players find it difficult to justify a place in the rotation, none of the youngsters make the desired leap even when the situation gives them opportunities for the most part. Devonta Graham and Nickel Alexander-Walker, the opening pair of guards, are not even close to 40 percent from the field, Tomasz Storensky has completely disappeared, in the top five anonymous second-round player Herbert Jones comes up mainly because he is less harmful than others. The only player to function is Jonas Valencionas, a center who controls color and it is unclear how he will be able to collaborate with Zion. Lonzo Ball, meanwhile, looks great in refreshing Chicago and does all the things no one else would do in New Orleans. In the midst of the third season of Project Zion, it is unclear if apart from Ingram there is in the current squad even one player who is fit to fit into the rotation of a successful team to be built around the human tank,Even before wondering if he is able to get back to himself.

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Source: walla

All sports articles on 2021-11-08