Lebrongebra

 It still gives me a sour taste in my mouth but I was really looking forward to the current NBA season. Why? Because the Lakers fired head coach Darvin Ham, replaced him with JJ Reddick, Lebron's podcast cohost and living argument that frenology at least can tell you who is a douchebag. JJ has no professional coaching experience, much like former British PM David Cameron, he's simply somebody who thought he'd be quite good at being a head coach of the NBA.

Less consequently, but significant to my anticipation, the Lakers used their 66th draft pick to draft Lebron James Jr. aka "Bronny" James. A kid who mathematically has no place in the NBA. So in the words of Jack Donaghy we were looking at a "guaranteed disaster, like sex after a burrito" for the Lakers coming into this season.

It took a little longer for the wheels to fall off than I would have liked. The Lakers won their first three games. Bronny predictably was useless, the only question really was how to calibrate our sympathies for him: was he the victim of his own father's narcissistic and vainglorious attempts to eclipse MJ as the all time greatest? Or is he perfectly complicit in milking the Lakers organisation of wealth he doesn't need given his father's status as a billionaire?

Once Bronny was sent to the G-League, a 2nd round 66th pick with a $7.9 million dollar four year contract and refused to play road games for the South Bay Lakers because he can't handle flying commercial, I think it is clear that he is happy to loot the Lakers organisation. What he is not happy doing is playing basketball in order to earn that money. 

Now, JJ. as head coach of the Lakers JJ Reddick is like a forthcoming member of the Trump administration just displaced linearly in time. What I mean by this, is that JJ deserves no sympathy for his situation, because one has to have exceptional exceptional thinking if one thinks they can coach a Lebron team and succeed. 

At this point, to think that your career is not going to play out exactly like Darvin Ham's is just ludicrous. Your best bet is to be an Erik Spoelstra and have Lebron leave your team before they can blame his losing on you.

This is the strange algebra facing any coach of the LA Lakers, and specifically facing any coach of Lebron.

Firstly what are we solving for? We are trying to find the equation that results in Lebron James winning a finals MVP. That means Lebron has to plausibly be the best player on a championship team. That means any coach has to play Lebron for serious minutes, for a serious number of games in both the regular and post seasons.

It's worse though, because as he needs to have a plausible case for being the best player on the team, that means you have to run plays through Lebron in order to fill up his stat sheet.

The thing is, Lebron is 39 going on 40. Right its easy to overstate and overdetermine the case against Lebron, so keep in mind he is 40 years old and worth $1.2 billion dollars (est.) why the fuck is this guy playing in the NBA at all? 

So don't forget that fundamental question, when I go on to assert that late stage Lebron is a defensive liability, frequently he doesn't even make it back across half-court to defend, when he is back on defense he doesn't do anything, doesn't lift his arms, doesn't rotate just stands around. Youtuber Angry Old Hoops now has hours of video documenting Lebron's lack of defense.

Then Lebron is famously bagless, he really only has two reliable shots in his repertoire being the layup and the dunk. If the NBA enforced its own rules, Lebron would have to retire, because his points are largely tallied via uncalled offensive fouls, dislodgement, travelling and carrying (again Angry Old Hoops has the receipts) and furthermore many of Lebron's offensive fouls are called as defensive fouls sending him to the line. On top of this Lebron is good for about 5 turnovers a game and is the NBA's all-time leader in career turnovers. 

And this is what JJ and Ham and Vogel et al. were stuck with as an unsolveable algebra problem coaching Lebron James. You need James making a significant contribution to the team, but you also need the team to win. This is Skinner's mother demanding of the bag boy that all her groceries be packed into one bag and for that bag not to be heavy.

The equation has no solution simply because Lebron James is not the greatest player of all time, he has arguably not been the greatest player at any time of his career, with Kobe and Duncan eclipsing him early, Steph Curry eclipsing him late, and Giannis and Jokic eclipsing him in the post script.

As a result, JJ should know he is taking millions of dollars from the Lakers to perform in a farce, where despite having a stacked roster (minus Lebron and Bronny) with a lineup that beat the Boston Celtics at home last year without AD or Lebron playing, the eventual NBA champions, thanks to Lebron being on the team that team will wind up sitting somewhere around 10th for most of the season in the Western Conference, make the playoffs in the 7th or 8th berth, exit after the first round where nobody can attribute the Laker's lack of success to the fact that Lebron just sucks, meaning that you as head coach will inevitably get fired, reputation ruined.

To put this in terms that a lay person could understand, imagine if Elon Musk bought the NBA, bought the Lakers, bought ESPN etc. and then had the Lakers sign him to a players contract and given a position in the starting lineup and then all the media talked about how Elon Musk was a top 10 player at age 60 or whatever he is, and that the Lakers were a real contender this year, and because Musk was somehow everyone's boss nobody could mention that Musk just sucks not even you, you just have to lose your job when there's nobody else to blame but the central figure most responsible.

JJ is getting paid to maintain delusions. This is like keeping a plastic shopping bag in the air by kicking it. This is Lebron's real longevity.