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An Obligatory Celebration of LeBron James In Light Of Recent Events

Oh do you want a LeBron James article? Maybe something that captures the incredible achievements that he’s made throughout this season and into the playoffs, somehow dragging what’s now regarded as one of his worst ever supporting casts (despite everyone being pretty chuffed with their trade deadline additions at the time) into the NBA Finals. An article that examines his immense legacy and undeniable greatness… well too bad.

Everybody’s trying to write that article and nobody’s going to be able to whip up the definitive version because this bugger’s just too much of a primordial force to capture in words. He shreds your pitiful descriptions with every subsequent game. So what I’m gonna do instead is simply list a bunch of stuff that applies to him and we can all just drool at the wonder of it.

LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers from 3-2 down in their Eastern Conference Finals clash with the Boston Celtics to win 4-3, taking game six 109-99 in Cleveland and then topping the Celtics on their own home-court in game seven for an 87-79 victory.

LeBron James scored 46 points from 17/33 shooting with 5/7 three-pointers, 11 rebounds, 9 assists and 3 steals in game six when facing elimination.

LeBron James then scored 35 points from 12/24 shooting with 15 rebounds and 9 assists in game seven, also facing elimination, and played the entire 48 minutes – something he hasn’t done in the playoffs since 2006 when he was 21 years old.

LeBron James played the full 48 minutes in a playoff game and was excellent despite it being his 100th game of the season. Despite having now played 3769 minutes of basketball this season. Nobody in the NBA has played more total minutes this season.

LeBron James played all 82 games this regular season for the first time in his NBA career.

LeBron James is in his fifteenth season as a professional basketball player. He is 33 years old. In the fourth quarter of that game seven he shot 4/6 with 3 rebounds and 4 assists. It was his third game in five days.

LeBron James averaged 33.6 points, 9.0 rebounds, 8.4 assists while shooting 52.4% from the field and 40.9% from 3pters and playing 41.1 minutes per game in the series against the Celtics.

LeBron James is averaging 34.0 points, 9.2 rebounds, 8.8 assists while shooting 54.2% from the field and 34.4% from 3pters and playing 41.3 minutes per game across these entire playoffs.

LeBron James, once again, is in his fifteenth season as a professional basketball player.

LeBron James has now won the Eastern Conference for eight consecutive seasons. He will thus play in his eight consecutive NBA Finals series. Only five other players have played in eight consecutive Finals series and they all played for the Boston Celtics in the 1950s-60s. John Wall, Paul George and DeMarcus Cousins were all drafted in 2010. Each are multiple time All Stars. None have ever played in a season in which LeBron James did not make the Finals.

LeBron James has won the Eastern Conference in back to back runs of four consecutive seasons with two different teams.

LeBron James has now won six consecutive game sevens. He has scored at least 30 points in six of his eight career game sevens. Two of those game seven wins came on the road. His last game seven defeat came in 2008.

LeBron James has won seven of his past eight elimination games and has now recovered from 0-2 in a series to win three separate times. That’s 15% of the total times that’s ever been achieved in the history of seven-game series.

LeBron James has won 24 consecutive playoff series in the Eastern Conference.

LeBron James has made the NBA Finals with a team that lost its second best player to a preseason trade which got them two draft picks, an injured Isaiah Thomas and an unfit Jae Crowder. And also Ante Zizic. Only Zizic is still with the team.

LeBron James has made the NBA Finals with a team that traded away six players at the deadline, bringing in Rodney Hood, George Hill, Larry Nance and Jordan Clarkson to drastically reshuffle its roster two-thirds of the way through the season.

LeBron James, in the last month and a bit, has broken hearts in Indiana, destroyed the entire city of Toronto and, most impressively of all, found a way to shut Boston fans up.

LeBron James is in his fifteenth season in the NBA. He is 33 years old. He has been playing professionally since he was a teenager and has never been in any serious trouble off the court. He donates an unfathomable amount of time and money towards charitable causes and is a massively respected voice when it comes to societal issues. Sometimes people still try to diminish him by reducing his achievements to his 3-5 record in the Finals.

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