NBA scout rips LeBron’s impact this season, says he looks ‘bored’

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James has debatably made more headlines this season for the mere fact that he’s playing in an NBA-record 23rd campaign than his actual on-court production.

The NBA’s oldest active player, who just recently turned 41, is certainly staying afloat, but he’s averaging career-lows in points (20.3) and rebounds (4.9) for a Lakers squad that’s floundered in recent weeks.

A handful of people around the NBA were asked by RG.org to share what’s impressed them the most about James’ play this season, and one scout had a blunt response.

“Nothing,” the scout said. “I think he’s bored. He can muster up a drive here or there. He can go for a steal and get a breakaway dunk. But he can’t finish in the lane like he used to anymore. He doesn’t finish as well against contact. He wants to shoot more 3s. If he has enough energy, he’ll sometimes have a chasedown block. But those are just highlights. He’s not really impacting winning. He mustered up a good performance against Philly [29 points, seven rebounds, six assists]. But when they play good teams, he looks less than human.”

James’ decline in production this season is a notable development because he’s defied Father Time for such a long time. He’s been one of the premier players in the NBA for more than 20 seasons, and as recently as last season, he put up excellent all-around numbers that rivaled those of almost any player in the league.

This season, he’s still putting up numbers that many players would envy, but for maybe the first time in his professional basketball career, he might be showing signs of slowing down.

James is on the heels of a miserable shooting performance in Los Angeles’ blowout loss to the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday. He mustered merely 17 points on 6-of-17 shooting from the field, 3-of-10 shooting from 3-point range and 2-of-5 shooting from the charity stripe. Against a possible contender, James was out of sorts from a scoring standpoint all game long.

Stunningly, the numbers even indicate that the Lakers have been a better team sans James on the floor this season. Los Angeles’ record with James on the campaign is just 9-6 and an impressive 11-5 without him. That’s a .600 winning percentage compared to a winning percentage of .688. Correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate causation, but it’s still worth noting.

Perhaps James will find his scoring groove as the season drags on — his role certainly has something to do with his production to this point — but it’s possible that he simply doesn’t have enough left in the tank to be a go-to offensive player on a game-to-game basis anymore.

His Lakers will try to avoid their fifth loss in six games when they do battle against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday. Memphis is fighting a skid of its own and sits as the No. 9 seed in the West.