We Will Never See Anything Like This Again

The other night I watched an old man torture one of the best teams in the NBA. I've seen him do it a million times. This behavior should not be a surprise and, however, it is because LeBron James in his 21st season remains one of the best basketball players on the planet in the greatest comeback of his entire career LeBron James scored 19 points in 6 minutes and He scored or assisted on 30 of the Lakers' 39 fourth-quarter points, eviscerating the Clippers in the process by prancing around the court. The tongue comes out torturing a crowd of Clippers who can't believe what they're witnessing and neither can I.

A masterpiece of a performance from ol' Geyer, but LeBron has been excellent in the fourth quarter all season long. In fact, here's a chart for every player

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season. and they are scoring in the fourth quarter the further to the right they are the more efficient they have been in the quarter the further up they are the more they score in the quarter over 500 players who have logged minutes

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NBA season here is Jaylen McDaniels should probably pass the stone at the end of these games here's drik Lively he should probably shoot more in the fourth Jonathan Kaminga has been great late in games this season and then there's Jordan P who shouldn't be anywhere near a basketball in the fourth fourth, but At the top of this table you'll find the best fourth-quarter scoring threats in the league, guys like Tatum Durant, Steph Luca, and the NBA's best fourth-quarter scorer this season, Giannis, a DMO with a considerable gap over everyone else except LeBron James, the oldest player. in the NBA and he is still one of the best players on the planet, we have to talk about this today's video is sponsored by SeatGeek the NBA season is in full swing the MLB season is just around the corner its artists Favorites are on tour and all of you are going to need some tickets now that you've used my promo code so much that SeatGeek wanted to offer you a new promotion and a new special offer and it's the best one yet for the rest of the season for everyone who uses the code Jimmy 10.

You'll get 10% off any entree on SeatGeek Whether you're new to the app or have been using it for years like me, the code Jimmy 10 is good for 10% off any order At SeatGeek, simply enter the app and find the best tickets. for you using your color coded seating map, enter the promo code and that's it, take advantage of this offer while it's still available, download the SeatGeek app and use the code Jimmy 10 to get 10% off any order with all young talents on the rise. In today's NBA it's always nice to see the old guys prosper. On any given night, a classic performance, a flurry of mid-range jumpers from KD Kyle Lowry coming off the bench to stink for 25 minutes and eventually you get used to it.

You see it like this enough times and everything becomes pretty normal at a certain point, however, this is under no circumstances normal 34 8 and six with 80% true shooting and 19 points in the fourth quarter to cap off a 21 point comeback, I think . I'm going to be sick, this man is old enough to be someone's grandfather and he's doing this to Kawaii and the kids are even crazier by the game's scoring metric, this wasn't even close to their best game of the season , so while everyone else continues make light of what this man is doing this season. I'm going to show you exactly how incredible LeBron has been in his 21st season over the last 53 games.

Now there really is no precedent for what LeBron is doing because there have only been six other players who even played 21 seasons in the NBA here are those players and their averages in their 21st season to actually get this far in your career is a miracle, but not for LeBron, oh wait, these are LeBron's stats in the fourth quarter of this season. his actual stat line is almost equivalent to all of these other players in their 21st seasons combined now, as I mentioned before, as statistically heroic as LeBron's performance was

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st the Clippers, it wasn't even his best game of the season, his best game this year was.

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st the Thunder, where he scored 39.4, a game in which he scored 40.7 and seven on 84% true shooting.

Now it goes without saying that LeBron is the only player to ever have a performance like this for a guy in his 21st season, but there have been a few other games of this caliber by players in their 20th season, another three games to be exact and they were all LeBron's. He is also the only player to have a performance like this in his 19th season in the league and 18th season, in fact, here is a list of the only games in NBA history that were better than Night of 40 LeBron's points against the Thunder from players with at least 15 seasons in their career is LeBron LeBron plus LeBron oh look, there's Paul Pierce and more LeBron a piece of 47 from Kobe and more bombs from LeBron Steph 60 this season and LeBron and that's it as far as Old Man Records is concerned.

LeBron has pretty much every single one right now. LeBron is averaging 20, 58, and seven per game on 61% true shooting, which at this point is just another season for him, but after 21 years and there's no reason why or how a player should To be putting up these numbers before this year, there have only been four players in NBA history who have averaged these numbers in a season. Michael Jordan Nicole and James Harden and LeBron, but here's the difference when Jordan did it, he won the MVP both times Joic did it he won the MVP and when Harden did it he came second in the MVP voting LeBron not only missed the award when He put this stat in the past, he's not even in the top 15 in the NBA MVP rankings this season, which is not only a testament to how great players have become in the last decade, but also how accustomed we have become to these LeBron numbers. but despite the consistency in his numbers, LeBron continues to adapt and evolve his game even after all these years, the game has changed immensely and his game has changed with it, there are new players, new schemes and styles of play driven by data that is nothing like the league that he. 21 years ago new unique unicorns and guys with monstrous skills and skill sets came in, and yet it's LeBron in his 21st season who still remains one of one.

Here's a graph that tracks LeBron's three-point percentage over the course of his career, starting his career at an abysmal 29% from three and somehow peeing this season in year 21 at 41%, but here is where it gets even crazier: Here are LeBron's three-point attempts per game over his career, so not only is he shooting better than ever from long range this season. In his career, he's also shooting more threes than he did during most of his career; In fact, this season, LeBron is one of only 14 players attempting at least 5.5 three-pointers per game and shooting at least 40% from long range, essentially making the The 6-foot-9, 250-pound power forward is one of the most valuable three-point shooters in the league, but LeBron is also one of five players who attempts at least eight shots per game from within 5T of the basket while shooting at least 65% from that distance. making him one of the best interior scorers in the league, plus these two ends of the scoring spectrum don't mix players, they are in one category or the other, but LeBron has found a way to sneak into both now here are those same 13 shooters three-pointers and where they land on a league-wide three-point shooting graph and here are the other four interior scorers who land on an interior scoring graph and this is where they don't mix players who can shoot threes really can't score for inside and players who can score inside can't shoot and then there's LeBron, literally the only player in the league who can do both at an elite rate as the oldest player in the NBA, but again, this could be Surprising if we didn't expect this from LeBron, did you know that LeBron is the only player in NBA history to appear as a point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward and center? that was the formal position he was assigned.

I mean, he started and played the majority of his minutes at every position for at least one season of his career in the current Positional League. You might think this is much more common than before, but LeBron is still the only one. player who not only possesses this range of skills and size, but is the only player to do so at an Ultra Elite level and earned All-NBA honors at all five positions throughout his career, it's safe to say that the torch has been passed to younger talents. the players in the league who can rack up video game numbers every night.

I don't think anyone knows that LeBron is playing at the level of Joic or Shay or Luca right now, but there's something about watching LeBron cook up hardwood Classics and stack up. to monster stat lines at this stage of his career, that really makes me smile. If LeBron doesn't get any recognition this season for the MVP award, I'm sure he'll be fine at this point, he almost feels like it. what it does do is just icing on the cake, like an extra scene after the credits of a movie that you thought was over 20 minutes ago and yet you're still in your seat getting more than you bargained for, but I think there's a metric that truly demonstrates LeBron's impact even in the 21st year of his NBA career.

Estimated wins are a metric derived from the estimated plus minus statistic. Estimated wins track how well a player is playing and convert his on-court efforts into a number equal to the number of wins. player has contributed to his team in a given season, in other words, how many wins a player has contributed to his team's total and here is a graph of each player's estimated wins in this NBA season. Now at the bottom are the players who are essentially a network. negative for their team, hence they have a negative win estimate. In fact, you have to go up to 308th just to find a player who has a positive addition to his team's wins.

Keep going up and you'll start to find players playing considerable minutes. every game like Terren man cam Thomas Anthony Simons we get closer to the top 100 and you

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already start to find some very quality players here Bradley Beal lamelo ball Kade Cunningham RJ Barrett but you

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have to go much further to find them consistent star caliber players Scotty Barnes lands in 30th place with 7.2 estimated wins Victor Wanyama is already in 28th place in this metric with 7.3 estimated wins here are Fox and sabonis Steph Mitchell Edwards Tatum and the five best players in the league this season according to this metric Brunson joic Luca Giannis and sheay gilis Alexander, so where exactly does LeBron land?

He ranks fifth among all players this season in terms of estimated wins that helped make his team essentially the NBA's fifth most valuable player when he was in his 21st season.