Lakers News: Should LeBron James Rally For League's Best Scoring Average?
With LeBron James clearly aware of the offensive limitations of this season's Lakers roster, would he be interested in making a run at the league's top scoring average?
Last year, the 6'9" power forward finished with the second-best scoring average (albeit in just 56 games) across the league, 30.3 points a night (on .524/.359/.756 shooting splits), behind just Philadelphia 76ers All-NBA center Joel Embiid. James also averaged 8.2 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.1 blocks a game.
In an opening night reaction podcast last week, Bill Simmons of The Ringer spoke with his colleague Kevin O'Connor about his expectations for James this season, after first making a point to (accurately) chide the team's brutal roster depth.
"They're gonna win their fair share, I think, to at least not dip too far," Simmons said. "They'll hang around if those two guys [James and Davis] are healthy... The difference this year is, I think LeBron knows that this title has sailed for this season, which is what leads me to my overreaction [of the night]. So LeBron was 23:1 on FanDuel to win the scoring title. I actually think that's a great bet from what I saw tonight because I think he's going to kind of quickly move into [thinking], 'You know what? We don't have it this year, I'm going to score some points. I'm going to break the [regular season scoring] record. I'm gonna get my 30 a game. I'm gonna try to get to, like, 65 games, and get to 32-35 [points] a night. [Did you] see how fast they were playing? They were playing with pace in the fourth quarter. If they play with that kind of pace... I don't know if Davis is even going to be able to hold up, but if [he does], I do think [James] is going to score points."
O'Connor agreed. "If you're LeBron, you're thinking about yourself right now. And you're thinking about your numbers and your place in history," he said. "You get that done and then you reassess next summer... Rob Pelinka... is either the worst GM in all of basketball or he deliberately built a roster so bad around LeBron that he's trying to push him to ask out after the season, knowing that there's no path to winning again with him anymore."
Currently, James is averaging 27.3 points a night on a .477/.259/.765 slash line through three contests. Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant is leading the league at present, averaging 35.3 points per game.
