LeBron James just continued his two-decade dominance in the world of basketball by winning another gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The King won the MVP title in the competition, adding yet another feather to his cap as he headed toward his third gold.
While everyone was celebrating, Doc Rivers abruptly had a different opinion, highlighting a feature of the 39-year-old’s gameplay that appears to be declining.
Initially, the 62-year-old expressed a great deal of praise for James’ remarkable longevity on The Bill Simmons Podcast. He continued by pointing out that the Los Angeles Lakers player had been experiencing low energy in recent games as a result of his prolonged career.
Doc Rivers speaks about LeBron James’s defficiencies
But Rivers dismissed these alleged warning flags right away, saying,
“I don’t think anyone is gonna have a career maybe in our lifetime like LeBron [James]… Now, guys are playing longer but can they stay healthy? That’s been LeBron’s thing. Not only has he been healthy, he has been healthy and he has not lost a step. Only thing he loses is his energy in games. There’s times when he get tired. But that’s called being 40, playing NBA basketball”.
Rivers’s remark presented the facts on all sides. James finds it difficult to keep up with the other players on the court as his career comes to an end, but this is to be anticipated. Well, he is getting close to 40. Sometimes, this even results in errors and weaknesses on defense.
Nevertheless, he usually made up for it with his overall performances. In the previous season, for instance, he averaged 25.7 points per game, good for 13th place in the NBA. With 8.3 assists per game, he was also the league’s fifth-best assist provider and, with 7.3 rebounds per game, the 32nd-best rebounder.
