Jason

I did think a lot of people galaxy brain that before the season.

Number eight.

LeBron is still one of the most dependably great players in the NBA.

Obviously, San Antonio did not hold up their end of the bargain last night, but there was a time yesterday where I was like, oh my God, the Lakers are still going to get the three seed.

This is insane.

And the reason why is because LeBron was able to, with this unit that obviously is deeply flawed after you get past their stars, pull out a bunch of wins at the tail end of the season and help the Lakers stay afloat and end up finishing at, what was it, 52 wins or 53 wins that they finished with at the end of the season?

52, I believe.

And if you go back to what I said before the season, one of the things I talked about that was strange with this LeBron thing was

was for being 41 years old, he's just still one of the most dependable, like gonna be there every night type of players in the NBA.

He played back to back 70 game seasons before this year.

And yeah, he missed the start of the season with that weird sciatica thing.

But once he checked in, he played 60 of the final 68 games of the season.

And in a season where Austin and Luca both broke down, LeBron looks as strong as ever going into the postseason.

And it's weird because there's always been this kind of weird skepticism around LeBron.

Like, oh, is he going to be able to stay healthy by the end of the season?

Which I think was unfairly applied to him relative to his age because there are stars all around the league that regularly end up around like 60, high 50s, mid 60s games played and missed playoff games and are banged up at important stretches of the season when they're in their mid 20s, late 20s, early 30s.

Meanwhile, LeBron's playing 70 games, the full playoffs for 70 games, the full playoffs, 60 games of the final 68 games.

And he's ready to go for the playoffs.

I think LeBron deserves a lot more credit for how available he's been as an old man to put it very simply.

He's been above average availability compared to stars over the course of this last three year stretch.