LeBron James' left knee injury became a cloud of doubt.
The Lakers just announced that James had a fluid accumulation in his left knee and swollen it, and James would not come back until the swelling subsided. According to the latest news, James' recovery is smooth, and the Lakers hope he can make a comeback in the next few days.
According to medical experts, James may have a fluid sac on the back of his left knee, and he may need weeks or even months to recover, depending on which treatment regimen is taken.
Obviously, the two statements contradict each other.
Only he and the Lakers know exactly how serious James's injury is, and what is certain now is that James' progress bar surpassing Carl Malone and Karim Abdul-Jabbar to crown the all-time scoring king is stuck.
However, considering that James is only 1973 points away from surpassing Abdhabal, his pace of surpassing Abdul-Jabbar has been delayed and may slow down later, but the probability that his result of surpassing Abdul-Jabbar will not change, it is only a matter of time. With james' competitive form this season, perhaps 40,000 points is his ultimate goal.
Injuries added difficulty to Zhan Huangchong's all-time scoring king
This season, the 37-year-old James has far exceeded expectations. In 36 games, James averaged 29.1 points per game, the fourth-highest career record. James has scored more than 30 points in 22 games, including one with more than 40 points. Before injuring his left knee, James even saw hope of impacting the season's scoring champions.
However, injuries have become an obstacle for James to impact the season scoring champions, and it has also slowed down James' progress in impacting the historical scoring champions. James suffered a abdominal strain earlier in the season, missing 12 games in the first half of the season. James has recently been plagued by a left knee injury and has missed four consecutive games. Next, James may miss more games, and in the last 30 games of the season, it is still unknown how many games James can play.
In the Cavaliers and Heat era, James rarely suffered from injuries. But after coming to the Lakers, James was plagued by injuries in three of his four seasons. In the 2018-19 season, James suffered a groin strain and missed as many as 27 games throughout the season. In the 2020-21 season, James missed as many as 27 games due to an ankle sprain. These annoying injuries have saved James a lot of points.
Compared with his predecessors, James also has a disadvantage: the three schedule reductions in the modern history of the NBA have allowed James to catch up. One was the 2011-12 suspension that led to a shrinking schedule, and the other two were due to the shrinking schedule of the past two seasons due to the pandemic, which caused James' team to play 16, 11 and 10 games less, which in turn caused James to lose a lot of points. Without these 3 schedules, James' total scores might now have surpassed Malone in Second place in history.
Break the road to cognition without stopping
According to normal cognition, a player's playing time and scoring output will decrease with age, and even the greatest star cannot escape the pursuit of the old man of time. But over the years, James has been constantly breaking cognition, and his trajectory of impacting the historical scoring king has far exceeded expectations. Compare the predictions of the data model with James' actual performance, and you will find that the cold data model greatly underestimates James.
In 2016, when James' career total score was about to surpass Olajuwon into the top ten in history, ESPN authoritative data expert Pelton used the SCHOENE data system to predict James's future career.
Because James' career attendance has always been extremely high, Pelton set james' future career average of 77 games in a single season. Pelton used the age-appropriate playing time of Carl Malone, Moses Malone and Tim Duncan to show that James will become the all-time leading scorer in the 2024-25 season, that is, at the age of 40.
In this model, James' average playing time has decreased year by year since the 2016-17 season, and his average points per game are also less than 25 points per game, and will be less than 20 points by 2020-21.
In 2019, after James surpassed Michael Jordan in career scoring, Pelton conducted another simulation, this time with James beating jabbar at the age of 40. In this forecast, Pelton adjusted his forecast for James' attendance and lowered james' attendance. At the same time, he predicted the average playing time of James after the age of 35 based on the average playing time of many Evergreens in the history of the league, and James averaged less than 30 minutes per game from the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
Pelton's two simulations, the second one is more reasonable, taking into account the changes in attendance and playing time after the players have increased their age. However, James' attendance did drop, but not much in playing time. He has averaged nearly 35 minutes and more than 33 minutes per game in the past two seasons, 35.2 minutes in the 2018-29 season and 36.6 minutes per game this season.
The high playing time, coupled with James's near-perfect competitive state when he is healthy, his firepower output is still not lost, and the average score per game is always maintained at a level of not less than 25 points per game. According to Pelton's prediction, James's average points per game will fall below 20 points to 17.8 points for the first time in the 2021-22 season, but James has averaged 29.1 points per game this season.
As a result, james is still at the age of 37 to no. 3 on the all-time scoring list at the age of 37, and only 514 points from No. 2 Malone and only 1973 points from No. 1 Mr. Abdul-Jabbar.
When will Emperor Zhan be crowned the scorer of history?
Because of injuries, the pace of James' crowning of all-time scoring champions has slowed, and his future is fraught with uncertainty. But this uncertainty is largely focused on the timing of the coronation, not the outcome of the coronation.
The Lakers have 30 games left this season, and if James can't play at least 20 of his last 30 games, his time to advance past Malone to second place in history is likely to be postponed until early next season. Because James' state after his comeback is still unknown, Anthony Davis has returned, and it is difficult for James to average more than 29 points per game as before, and 25 points per game is a more reasonable prediction. If James wants to surpass Malone this season, he must hope that the knee injury will not be serious and will not let him be absent for a long time.
After surpassing Malone, James is less than 1500 points away from Abdul-Jabbar. Given that James still shows no signs of a serious decline, he is still likely to maintain an output of at least 22 points per game next season, and if he can avoid injuries and play at least 70 games next season (averaging 70 points per game of 22 points is 1540 points, enough to complete the overtaking), he is expected to be crowned the all-time scorer at the end of the regular season next season.
"I'm looking forward to seeing that scene come true, I don't see the record as a personal achievement, the record is more of a human achievement." If one can do something that no one has done before, it means that we all have a chance to do it, which gives people hope and inspiration. "Abdul-Jabbar had previously encouraged James to hit the record.
Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute-mile record in 1954, and since then, not only have 1,400 runners broken that record, but the new record has also shortened the time by 17 seconds. When a record is broken, it's a victory that belongs to all of us. So if James breaks my record, I'll be there to cheer him on. ”
One variable lies in James' plans for the future, next season is James' contract year, 2023 James will face a choice, will he continue to play until the age of 40?
If James is willing to play without major injuries, even if James fails to surpass Abdhabal in 2022-23, he can complete the overtaking in 2023-24, when James is 39 years old. And if the time is right, James's ultimate goal may be 40,000 points.