LeBron remains a Rock of Age

Nearing his 39th birthday, James joins Anthony Davis to win another Lakers trophy

No, L.A. doesn’t always win. The remarkable L.A. Kings had a 2-0 goal lead but lost to the Islanders in overtime, which was the end of their first-ever streak of 10 road wins to begin an NHL season. Then LAFC couldn’t put together back-to-back MLS Cups, dropping the final to Columbus.

Those news items were way below the fold, as they used to say in newspaper circles. Shohei Ohtani agreed to a $700 million contract with the Dodgers, the same amount that Crypto.com is paying for naming rights to what used to be Staples Center.

And the Lakers won a trophy for the first time since 2020. This one was the inaugural NBA Cup, awarded at the end of the In-Season Tournament in Las Vegas. Like the 2020 Lawrence O’Brien trophy, it was largely delivered by Anthony Davis, who rampaged for 41 points, 21 rebounds, four blocks and four assists in 41 minutes.

The Lakers won, 123-109, and Davis’ only mistake was setting an individual standard that Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal will demand he meet each night. Davis got his 41 without even trying a 3-pointer, and he hit 16 of 24 shots. More critically, he has played in all one Laker game this season.

By his side was LeBron James, whose son Bronny makes his college basketball debut for USC against Long Beach State Sunday. James scored 24 with 11 rebounds in 35 minutes. In 20 days he will turn 39, matching Jack Benny. Four times this year this season he has played his age, meaning he’s turned in at least 39 minutes, including 42 when he put a 31-point number on Phoenix in the knockout round of the IST.

Mike Breen of ABC/ESPN understood what’s happening: “You hear people say Father Time is undefeated, but when it comes to LeBron James, Father Time is getting his butt kicked.”

Ohtani will turn 39 during the final year of this Dodgers’ transaction. Does anyone think Ohtani will be among baseball’s elite whenever that happens, amid robot umps and AI-powered play-by-play announcers? James is still among the most influential basketball practitioners, averaging 25 points a game. He is making $47.6 million this season and will make $51.4 million next. A lot of Sprite, to be sure, but in the fun house world of sports money, there is no sticker shock involved.

Occasionally the Lakers will speak of conserving James, but then they have to do something radical, like win a game, and it passes. The rumor is that James spends at least $1 million a year on conditioning alone. That is how you become a renewable. He never has looked more sculpted, and he is beating Bronny’s contemporaries downcourt on a regular basis. He is trying 5.6 three-point shots a game, a low for James since 2018, and his three-point percentage is .407, a career high. So, for that matter, is his 2-point percentage (.626),

Only three other NBA players in their 30s are outscoring James: Kevin Durant (35), Stephen Curry (33) and Damian Lillard (33). Only four players in their 30s are surpassing his 7.5 rebounds per game: Davis (30), Rudy Gobert (31) Nikola Vucevic (33) and Jonas Valanciunas (31). James is just behind Dereck Lively’s 7.7 rebound average. Lively, 19, is literally half his age.

The IST depended on the willingness of the league’s stars to take it seriously. The regular season has always been somewhat mundane, but at least the best players showed up. Then it became optional. Commissioner Adam Silver and his advisers, as well as the TV folks, noticed that soccer had special events that seemed to break up the monotony, so they ordered up LSD-inspired court designs and squeezed the tournament into the regular schedule. You have to salute the marketers. They found one of the quietest weekends of the year to bring it to a boil, with little to occupy the fan except the Heisman Trophy, and assorted college basketball walk-throughs.

Despite the Lakers’ success, they still aren’t considered a playoff favorite. Boston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Denver and Phoenix might be more solid, and then there are the heady interlopers from Orlando, Minnesota and Oklahoma City. But, of that group, only Milwaukee got into the semifinals, where it ran into the Pacers, the leading scorers in the NBA.

James viewed the tournament like a dog views a bone. Something’s out there, so let’s get it. The statistics in the final game didn’t even count. But there was a $500K bonus for each winning player. Cam Reddish, who may be in the midst of a career excavation, is making not quite $2.5 million. That’s a nice little nest egg, but the truth is that nobody fails to notice when a half-million falls into the account. Everyone on the Lakers will be grateful that the King was digging for their dollars, too.

Although the IST is of course ridiculed on Twitter, as is the truth, the worst thing you can say is that it was harmless. The also-rans won’t bear any scars. Nobody is going to say Adrian Griffin or Chris Finch is not a “tournament coach,” in NCAA parlance. But there was much to gain for the ones who won.

If nothing else, the fans learned the identity of Tyrese Haliburton, the point guard who, playing for Sacramento and Indiana, never had appeared in a TNT game. Haliburton led the NBA in assists last season. He was on Team USA in the world championships this year. Now, as the detonator of Rick Carlisle’s Pace-car offense, Haliburton is proving he is the best pure point guard in the league and maybe the last one, although he averages 26.9 points and is the most accurate three-point shooter among those who hoist seven per game (.441).

Haliburton has an old-school push shot and an unerring eye for his running teammates, and those passes create the 3-on-2s that the Pacers crave. In 15 of Haliburton’s 18 starts he has had at least 10 assists. In four games he has had at least 13 assists with zero turnovers, in a game where the ball seems to have the value of a gum wrapper. The Lakers knew who he was and circled him, and Haliburton went 2-for-8 from the arc, settling for 20 points, 11 assists and three whole turnovers.

Do you think Haliburton’s processing powers would have served a team like the Golden State Warriors, who used to overcome their absent-mindedness to win championships? Bob Myers thinks so. He’s the former general manager of the Warriors who now analyzes for ESPN. He had the second pick in the 2020 draft and took 7-foot James Wiseman, who had played virtually no college basketball. Haliburton lasted until the 12th pick, slipping through the hands of San Antonio (Devin Vassell), Chicago (Patrick Williams) and Atlanta (Onyeka Okongwu). Myers wasn’t the only one who whiffed, but he is his own least merciful critic, because the Warriors interviewed and worked out Haliburton and knew exactly who they were snubbing.

Haliburton’s dad John is a former referee and is his own show when he’s rooting on Tyrese. Haliburton himself is from Oshkosh, Wis. and was a 3-star recruit, primarily because he was trying to win AAU games on the scoreboard instead of the scorebook, but Iowa State knew what it was watching.

This is an interesting time in the NBA, with Anthony Edwards flourishing in Minnesota, with Chet Holmgren rewarding Oklahoma City for drafting him in 2022, with Tyrese Maxey giving Philadelphia championship hopes. There are other kids, too, intending to repair the tattered flag of American basketball. At some point maybe James will let them carry it.