Dirk Nowitzki couldn’t recall exactly when he was hit. His most glorious moment was over, the 50-win season, the exciting playoff trip, the competition for the championship……
Maybe it was at the end of 2011, a few months after The Lone Ranger won the championship, Nowitzki watched the key teammates leave one by one; Or maybe in the spring of the next year, The Lone Ranger was swept out in the first round of the playoffs; it is also possible that the next year, The Lone Ranger directly missed the playoffs.
However, Nowitzki knew very well that as a 35-year-old NBA star, he didn’t have much time left in his career. Nowitzki said: “On a personal level, you have done everything you want to do-all stars, various honors and the best team. In the end, all you want is to win. Win as many goals as possible and compete at the highest level, so the time after the team lost its competitiveness was very difficult.”
Nowitzki was still an elite competitive state at that time, which made all this more difficult for him. In the 2011-12 season, Nowitzki entered the top ten in the scoring list; In the 2012-13 season, Nowitzki hit 41 percent in three points; In the 2013-14 season, Nowitzki’s efficiency hit a new high in his career. Nowitzki can also be selected as an all-star, but what about the Lone Ranger? The departure of the players, the aging of the lineup and some poor operation of the management, The Lone Ranger has been completely finished.
So now Nowitzki saw James pass the ball to his teammates who had no shooting ability in the live TV broadcast, and was forced to shoot those balls that should not have been shot by him and lost the match at an incredible speed, nowitzki said, “you must feel the frustration on James.”
Few players can feel the pain James is suffering now. He is a legendary player in active service and still maintains an excellent competitive state in the late career, but there is no way to be tied up in a shaky team. To be precise, no player can feel the same. The bleak situation James is facing in the Lakers is unprecedented for players of his age and ability.
The Lakers’ current record ranks 12th in the West, finishing one third of the season, leaving 3 wins away from the 50% win rate, and falling into the abyss step by step. The Lakers are too weak to support James’s aging legend. Now, another Lakers’ star Davis has fallen again, and his foot injury may lead to his absence for several weeks. The Lakers with 13 wins and 16 losses seem to miss the playoffs next spring, just as they missed this year’s playoffs, although James’s personal performance can still be selected into the best team.
Although James has been limited by injuries and is not as efficient as before, he still got an average of 27 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.5 assists in 22 matches. Apart from James, only one player in the league got at least 25+8+6 data, that is, Dong Qiqi, who is 14 years younger than James. If James continues to maintain this state, James, who is about to reach the age of 38, will break the record of at least 25+8+6 oldest players in a single season. The previous record holder is James, who is 37 years old, 34-year-old James, 33-year-old James and 32-year-old James.
But we don’t know how long James can hold on or whether the Lakers can solve the team’s problems, which leads us to draw a thought-provoking conclusion: from any conceivable point of view, the Lakers are wasting one of the biggest players in NBA history and the final glory of their career. This is a tragedy. Richard Jefferson, James’s former teammates and good friend, said: “Last season was wasted in vain.”
The ending of this season seems to be no different. It ended early in next April and another season was wasted in vain, leaving a sigh.
Even for the great stars in NBA history, it is rare that they can reach the all-star level at the end of their career. What is more rare is that all these efforts eventually went to waste. Imagine:
Last season, James’s irreplaceable value (VORP: the bigger the value, the more important it is for the team) was 5.1, ranking third among all players over 37 years old in history (data source Stathead website). Only jazz Young Pioneer Team History stars Carl Malone (2000-01 season) and John Stockton (1999-2000 season) had higher VORP values, and Jazz scored the playoffs in both seasons. (Including all the All-Star players in all seasons since 1979-80)
Reduce the age threshold to over 35 years old, and the VORP value is at least 4, which makes the situation of the Lakers look worse. This has happened 16 times in history. Malone and Jabbar have done it many times. In addition, players such as Duncan, Nash, Paul and Nowitzki have done it. However, except James last season and Pau Gasol, who played for the Bulls in the 2015-16 season, all the others entered the playoffs.
NBA players usually start to decline around the age of 32, although some great players of historical level can still maintain an irreplaceable value of more than 3.5 at the age of nearly 40, this is close to the production of all stars. According to data from the Stathead website, 92 times have occurred in the past 43 seasons when the irreplaceable value of players over 35 years old exceeded 3.5. Among these players:
85 times in the playoffs
56 times passed the first round
35 times to the Division Finals
20 times on the stage of the finals
11 wins
Only 7 times did not make the playoffs, including James 2019and 2022twice, Curry 2021once, Paul Gasol 2016once, Gary Peyton 2001once in supersonic, Mickey Richmond1998 once in King, artis once in Bull in Gilmore1982.
Among the above people, Curry is the only one who is close to James. Warriors in the 2020-21 season are temporarily Abnormal. Clay Thompson is reimbursed for the season, Curry and Dream Green are short of fighting for a long time. Of course, the Warriors in the second year made a comeback and won the NBA championship at one stroke.
But James has lost the playoffs twice in the four seasons with the Lakers, and this season may still be the same. Different from most of the players mentioned above, James is not only a great player at the historical level, but also a candidate for the best player in history. This makes every bad deal and signing of the Lakers management and every failed season even more heartbreaking, which is a kind of desecration and insult to the God of basketball.
If we can create a data to measure the degree of abuse of legendary stars who are aging, such as the super giant abuse index, the Lakers may be the team with the highest Super Giant abuse index in history.
When Jabbar maintained the state of elite, he had never suffered such abuse. Neither Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kobe nor O’Neal, nor Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Duncan, David Robinson and Olajuwon. Of course, Jordan is the same. His two failed seasons for the Wizards also showed ordinary personal performance. If these players can continue to be great, their team’s competitiveness can also keep up; And if their status is not good, the team is completely finished.
This means that the dilemma James is facing is indeed unprecedented, and this kind of waste is also unique. Jefferson, an analyst at YES Network and ESPN, said: “when great players get older, the team needs to think of more ways to assist them.”
Jefferson mentioned that Duncan played two more playoffs with the help of Parker, Ginobili and Leonard in the last few years of Spurs and won the NBA championship successfully in 2014, duncan was 38 years old that year. Jefferson said, “Look at the talents around Duncan. Spurs helped Duncan in an appropriate way. I think for stars, sometimes this is a burden they have to bear, and there are always people who think that any problem can be solved with James. James will be the first to tell you that his success depends on the quality of his teammates and James’s ability to unite these players to build a great team, the premise of all this is the talent of the teammates around.”
It is worth noting that James missed six games in the early season because of groin injury, which aggravated the plight of the Lakers. However, before James fell, the Lakers’ record was already poor 2-9, and no one in the league was particularly surprised, after all, the Lakers management did not do anything to upgrade rosters after the 33-49-negative ending last season. The Lakers still lack the three-point projection ability, the center position is weak, and the outside defender is needed. Of course, fortunately, Wei Shao played very well after becoming the sixth player, but he was always not suitable for a team with James as the core.
The criticism of the Lakers came not only from scouts and experts. James pointed out the lack of shooting ability on the night of the season opener. The Lakers lost to the Warriors in that game, and the outside three-point goal was 40 shots and 10 shots. James said: “To be honest, we are not a team with excellent projection ability. This is the truth.” Indeed, the Lakers’ average number of three-point hits this season (9.8) is the last in the league, and the third-point hit rate (32.5%) is the last.
When the season just finished 10 games, the Lakers’ record was 2 wins and 8 losses. Davis mentioned that his personal best performance was when he won the Championship in 2020. The center position was Howard and Mackey rotation, he was liberated on the defensive end. Davis said: “We flew around on the defensive end and played a great defensive performance. When I was asked to defend the fifth position of my opponent, it was difficult to do this.” Later, the Lakers let Howard and Mackey go. Since then, it has been difficult for the team to fill in the vacancy.
On the same night Davis said the above remarks, Lakers coach Darwin Ham uncharacteristically talked about the Lakers’ salary space and tax. He pointed out that James, davis and Wei Shao locked a lot of salary space. Whether intentionally or not, this is another accusation against the Lakers lineup structure.
When the Lakers won the championship in the first two years, the salary structure was not so top-heavy. There were only two top-salary players on the book-James and Davis, and the rest were carefully arranged shooters and defenders, from Kuzma and pop to Danny Green, big Morris, Caruso and Rondo, as well as Howard and Mackey, all these people left the team. The 15 players of the Lakers in the 2020 playoffs are now only James and Davis. Danny Green talked about the rapid decline of the Lakers in the latest Crossover podcasting program. He said: “We all know what happened, the Lakers gave up many jigsaw players suitable for the team or left the deal. What kind of players Davis and James need are known for a long time.”
A large part of the role players were sacrificed in the unconsidered weishao deal, which directly caused the Lakers to lose Kuzma, pop and Harrell and indirectly Caruso. The Lakers rejected Caruso’s new contract asking price and lost him in the free agent market. The final Clapper of these decisions is the Lakers general manager Pelinka, but it is worth mentioning that there are reports that James himself has also pushed the Lakers to make a deal, it can be said that James needs to take part of the responsibility for the Lakers’ bad situation today, which is not too much.
From the following three angles, we can see that the role players of the Lakers have been significantly weakened:
There were 9 players in the Lakers rotation last season, and they were excluded from NBA when the opening match this season. (One of them is Stanley Johnson, who just signed a contract with Spurs last week)
There are 6 players in the core lineup of the Lakers this season, and last season there were unknown or marginal rotation players.
Except James and Davis, none of the Lakers can rank in the top 100 of the league (the list is given by Andy Bailey to comprehensively consider the player’s high-level data). In Andy Bailey’s list, in addition to James and Davis, Reeves (144) ranked the highest among the Lakers, followed by weishao (172).
Even James at his peak would be helpless in the face of today’s Lakers. He led the team alone in 2007, bringing a humble Knight into the finals, and repeated this feat in 2018. At present, this version of James has been playing for 20 seasons in his career, and his ability will definitely decrease, which is reflected in the decrease in his free throw shots, the decrease of field goal percentage and the injury.
Due to the absence of many games, James’s high-level data was affected, but the basic data showed that he was still the top ten player in the league, which was the same as last season’s performance. Although James’s scoring efficiency has declined, this can be partly explained as forced shooting of more difficult shots, because he lacks enough shooting ability and space around him. Perhaps it can also be seen from this that where is the fatal flaw of the Lakers. Jefferson said: “I think James’s football dealer is one of the greatest in history. At his age, he almost taught other players how to play. He should compete fully for the playoffs and the championship. It is easy for you to sympathize with James’s situation when you think of it.”
When James and the Lakers signed a two-year contract renewal in August this year, the cooperation between the two sides continued until the 2020-25 season. James decided to renew the contract on the premise that the lakers would take all necessary measures to improve rosters, even if it meant trading the first round of signing in the future. According to Chris Haynes, a reporter from Turner Sports, last month, the Lakers management has always been very resistant to the two first-round deals, which angered James and others in his camp.
The Lakers have made some progress recently, winning 11 games in nearly 17 games, including two impressive victories in front of bucks and nuggets. The recovery in this state is mainly due to the decline of the Lakers’ schedule strength, winning five games on the two worst teams in the league Spurs and the piston. However, few people in the league believe that the Lakers can win any round of playoff series. Jeff Van Gadi, an analyst at ESPN, thinks: “The Lakers still have a lot of defects in their lineup, but Davis, James and wishao have been playing very well since James returned from injury. Most importantly, the chemical reaction between them is also very good. However, if there is no major upgrade in rosters, it is difficult to see the hope of passing the playoff play-off.”
If the walkers are still interested, they will send weishao and two unprotected first-round signatures (2027 and 2029) to the walkers, and the trade fair for Turner and Hilde will cause the biggest sensation in the off-season, perhaps this is still the most practical choice for the Lakers. This deal may not make the Lakers a winning team. To be precise, no single deal can do this. However, this deal can solve many problems, including improving the strength of the starting lineup, shooting ability and internal defense, so that the Lakers have the hope of reaching the playoffs.
Such a deal can at least make the Lakers management respected. Isn’t this the minimum obligation that a team should have for a great player at the historical level? If it is true that the Lakers’ official implies that they either compete for the championship or fail, the Lakers will probably keep these first-round signatures and miss the playoffs until James retires or leaves in the free-agent market, or apply for a transaction.
Applying for a deal now sounds extreme, because James has just signed an extension contract, so he can’t do it until next summer. However, considering James’s habit of changing teams frequently in the league in the past ten years, many people would not be surprised to apply for a transaction. Jefferson supports the Lakers to win at present. He pointed out: “When James leaves, reconstruction is inevitable no matter how.”
However, the sources of the league believe that the Lakers management under Pelinka has hope for the revival after James left. They left the first round of signatures in order to exchange these first round signatures for greater rewards, such as bill of the Wizard.
Many Lakers fans, who are celebrities from all walks of life, publicly requested the Lakers management to take action. Flea, the bass player of red chilli, sent a request on Twitter early in the season: “Dear Pelinka, do something. Either tear down all reconstruction, or take out future assets to solve the team’s lack of chemical reactions and some abilities. Don’t let the efforts of another season go to waste, wasting the final glory of the great player James’s career.”
It has reached the point that James personally pushed it to the boss. After the four-game losing streak of the Lakers, James wrote on INS: “How long will you be taken for granted?” Then he deleted the dynamic.
ESPN analyst Reddick suggested on the grounds that the Lakers had huge defects and limitations. Fans had better pay attention to James’s efforts to break the scoring record instead of hoping for a miraculous change in the situation of the Lakers.
Van Gogh thinks that if James can lead the Lakers to the playoffs, this may be one of the greatest achievements in his career. Van Gadi said: “Most people may not notice this, or they may think it doesn’t matter. I think the only way to judge whether a player is a great player is whether you give everything in every season and whether you inspire the greatest potential of your teammates in every season. If James can lead the Lakers to the limit, then this is a great achievement. The Lakers are not an excellent team.”
Of course, for a great player in history, it is not enough to just enter the playoffs. Just as The Lakers lost to The Cavaliers recently, James said in an interview with The Athletic website: “I can still compete at a very high level. I don’t want to make The game a simple clock-in. Why should I do this? Because Tom Brady and I are the same kind of people, we compete for the championship.
In fact, in today’s NBA, it is more difficult than ever to build and maintain a championship-level team. The limitation of salary cap, the departure of tax and unprecedented player flow all run counter to stability. In the past four seasons, four different teams have been crowned successfully, and seven different teams have reached the finals. During this period, only warriors have entered the finals many times, and they are struggling this season.
Ten years ago, the lone ranger tried desperately to prolong Nowitzki’s era for their old stars. They saved salary space and chased every free agent star, from Howard to Delon Williams, Anthony, Aldridge, and signed Monta Ellis, Parsons, OJ-Mayo and Rondo. When talking about the Lakers, Lone Ranger boss Cuban said: “It is risky to go all out at any time. The Lakers have at least won a championship. If I can win the championship, I will do it without hesitation. I know it will consume the future of the team.”
Before Nowitzki began to decline, the Lone Ranger never found a suitable partner for him, making the challenge more difficult. Nowitzki’s last real glory was in 2014, when 35-year-old Nowitzki led the No. 8 seed Lone Ranger and pushed the final championship Spurs into the seventh World War in the first round. Nowitzki said: “We pushed Spurs to the edge of the cliff. If we play better, we will probably succeed.”
From then on, Nowitzki’s power began to weaken, and they never won a series. But Nowitzki saw James now. What he saw was a star who still had the ability to lead a championship team. Nowitzki said: “I am in awe of James’s performance in the 20th year of his career, and when I reached the 20th year, I already needed the whole team to help me enter.”
Looking back now, Nowitzki said that the reason why he could endure all this was that he believed in the boss Cuban and general manager Donnie Nelson. No matter what happens, Nowitzki is full of loyalty to the Lone Ranger team and Dallas, the city where he has lived throughout his career. Nowitzki said: “It has something to do with your persistence. Even if the team encounters difficulties, it will not leave. James decided to stay with the Lakers and play hard. Hard times are inevitable. You need to use experience to find a way to reverse the situation.”
Of course, James does not have such special fetters as Nowitzki in Los Angeles, as does the Lakers and team management. On the contrary, James is the representative of the players’ power reaching the peak, a mercenary who would rather offend the whole league and irritate the fans in order to pursue the ultimate basketball achievement. Can James maintain his dominant position at the age of 38? Can the Lakers reach the playoff level without trading? Everything remains to be seen. But if the Lakers really wasted another great season for James, it is hard to imagine that James will stay with the Lakers next year.
Original: Howard Beck
Compile: Li Taibai
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