J. Kyle Mann

What are their flaws?

What are they bringing to the table?

What is LeBron even capable of?

I feel like the variable we didn't talk about and that I just don't really hear spoken about often enough anywhere is that there is now a track record of several different distinct seasons in which a LeBron team looks like completely dead or useless defensively for a good portion of it and then just clicks into place.

And they have a seriousness and a focus and an attention to detail that is above and beyond anything you could reasonably expect based on their track record.

And once that just starts to happen over and over and over, including with this particular Laker team, I think we just have to call it out.

They are being very well coached right now by JJ Redick.

But also, I think there is something to... When you're playing with one of the greatest players of all time, it's obviously very noisy playing with LeBron.

But there's also just a very specific kind of demand and a kind of pressure that not everyone can handle.

But clearly, if you just have enough guys who can...

Some switches can be flipped in a real and dramatic way that is not just like throwing up your hands and deferring to the magic of LeBron James.

I think there is a real psychological thing that he brings that even some other stars, say Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets, I don't think the reason the Rockets are bad is because of Kevin Durant.

But I also don't think a LeBron James team would ever be as unserious as the Rockets look right now.

For sure.

I think you need all of that too, right?

You need the kind of season and structure where guys like Luka and Reeves are carrying enough of the offense that you get LeBron to the finish line so he can be this best version of himself.

But I just think he's, I mean, as an individual defender, he is one of the rare cases of someone who has all that processing power and can reverse engineer it defensively.

Like we've seen so many great playmakers who just like aren't great defenders, despite the fact that they have these great anticipatory instincts.

LeBron can apply everything, every direction all at once.

And I think the ability to do that, plus again, just like this latent pressure that exists around him that is different and distinct, I think from almost any other player in the league, the only other people I'd really compare it to is like maybe Steph at this stage.