On March 6, the Lakers will play the Warriors at home, and James will play against Curry again.
This is an opportunity for two teams in a losing streak, one of which will temporarily get out of trouble and use the win to "stop the bleeding" from the trauma of the recent record.
James and Curry have a special fate, they were also born in Akron City Hospital, they witnessed each other's peak, and now they are "hugging" in the mud of consecutive defeats, eager to nibble on the next victory from each other.
Pulling back the clock back to 2009, James lifted the regular season MVP trophy for the first time, and Curry entered the NBA that summer. The two had intersected before, when Curry set off a dark horse wave with a projection frenzy in the NCAA mad March, and James came to watch. Curry later made a special trip to Akron University for james skills training camp, and in the camp's first training game, Curry repelled the team led by James and Paul with a three-point kill.
It is because of this friendship that Curry went to Cleveland to play away for the first time in his rookie year, he went to Visit James's home, and the two talked about games, movies, and bowling. Curry asked James how to mentally and physically adapt to the transition from student basketball to professional basketball, and James poured his experience into it.
From 2009 to 2016, 8 regular season MVPs, 6 of which were shared by James and Curry, also from Akron, the two have a great difference in talent type and technical style, but the same is to release their basketball talent to the maximum extent, become the best player in the basketball era, and define this era.
To this day, James and Curry are still casting their own basketball monuments, the old Zhan marched to "411", Curry's various three-point records dominated the list, and they still have traffic and presence that are difficult for other stars to match.
However, the situation is slowly changing. Curry's shooting percentage this season is only higher than the 2019-20 season, which only played 5 games due to injury, he still has many amazing game moments, but the decline in efficiency is also visible to the naked eye, and there are many explanations for this, such as the decrease in agility after muscle gain, more energy on the defensive end, palm injuries and so on.
However, is there another possibility that Curry is a little old?
This is a topic that many Curry fans are reluctant to mention, but how do you interpret his shooting percentage from within 3 feet of the basket to a new low in nearly a decade, and his reliance on three-pointers has reached a career high, accounting for 62% of the shots?
The same thing happened to James, who averaged 29+8+6 per game this season and still looks gorgeous, significantly increasing the ceiling of 37-year-old players, 25 games 30+ domineering, but the Lakers lost 13 of these 25 games, and Old Zhan is the only player to score 30+ and lose in double figures this season.
James's becoming the owner of the empty slash group can be explained as teammates not giving power, but is there another possibility that his ability to lead the team to win has declined?
In 2019, James made an important decision, he switched to full-time point guard, ceding the position of the team's first attacker to the thick eyebrow brother. Old Zhan's choice is based on changes in physical condition, groin injury missed 17 consecutive games let him understand that time has caught up with him, he wants to transform, to organize the attack, instigate the counterattack, direct the defense, rather than the whole project as before.
James's transformation was exchanged for the assist king and the 2020 championship, but the Lakers' operation for two consecutive offseasons, the current situation of thick eyebrows hurting and injuring, pushed James back to its original position. The team failed to attract reinforcements, and the second boss was repeatedly trapped by injuries, asking James to repeat the 2018 full-strength Model, but this requirement is a bit out of touch with reality.
When James won the championship year in the Lakers, Curry experienced a dismal season, he then used the year of the scoring champion who averaged 32 points per game to kill back, the Warriors lost to the Lakers in the playoffs, James used three-pointers, this Curry is best at sending Curry home, but the Lakers also failed to go far, and the first round of the playoffs was eliminated.
The 2020-21 season is regarded as a year of change of the times, the regular season and the finals MVP was taken away by the symbol stars of the Mesozoic Generation, Jokic and Alphabet Brother, the finals for the first time since 2010 neither James nor Curry, the league is quietly opening the curtain of the change of dynasties, and the back waves of the Yangtze River are finally rolling in front of the waves.
In the latest NBA official MVP competition list, Jokic, Embiid and Alphabet Brother are in the top three, Morant and Doncic are in the top six, the Mesozoic generation has occupied the center of the stage, the new generation is moving closer to this area, and the plot of Janduku's battle for the MVP list that we were familiar with was only briefly presented at the beginning of the season, and then disappeared without a trace.
The Cleveland All-Star Game was originally seen as the starting point for Janku's recovery in the second half of the season, Akron double star one shot a key goal, one slashed 50 points to take away the MVP, but all this is like fireworks although brilliant but short, after the All-Star, the Warriors 1 win 3 losses, the Lakers 0 wins 4 losses, if you go further, the Warriors have lost 7 games in the past 9 games, two two consecutive losses, one three consecutive losses, the Lakers have suffered 7 defeats in the last 8 games, a wave of three consecutive losses, a wave of four consecutive losses. The Warriors have only a 0.5-win advantage in the second battle with the Grizzlies in the West, and the Lakers are only two wins away from the 11th Blazers in the West in the fight for a playoff spot, and then lose even the playoff qualification.
We can defend James and Curry, there is no thick eyebrow around the old Zhan and the lack of dreams around Curry, the importance of these two is self-evident, but as an epoch-making superstar, Zhan Ku can not rely on personal drive to lead the team to overcome injuries and win more games? If they were two or three years younger, would that still be a thing?
No one can be young forever, but there are always people who are young. In the warriors' and Lakers' recent losing streak, they met the same person, Doncic of the Lone Rangers. Doncic's way of solving the battle is simple and rough, standing on the stick singles, naming Zhanku, and Zhanku, who was once regarded by Doncic as a high-altitude existence in basketball, failed to give a heroic ball response.
Doncic is 23 years old, James is 37 years old, Curry is 34 years old, and it is exactly that way that boxing is afraid of being young.
The most direct embodiment of aging is the decline of physical fitness, specific to the game is the efficiency with the decline of the physical groove obviously, James this season in the first half of the shooting rate of 57%, the second half of the 47%, a difference of 10 percentage points, Curry's shooting rate in the first and second half is not large, because they are in the 43% of the bare passing line, the room for decline is limited, but at the critical moment (within 5 points of the last 5 minutes of the game), Curry's shooting rate is only 32%, and the three-point shooting rate is a tragic 18.9%, James was also inefficient in this time period, shooting 40% and 28% respectively.
Janku remains the league's most influential superstar, but their dominance is on the decline, and while they can still play jaw-dropping games on a particular night, they don't have the highlights of their peak years, curry has been in a flurry of ups and downs this season, with James doing well before the All-Star weekend and ups and downs after the All-Star weekend.
To put it simply, Zhanku's current performance makes people have to wonder that they have struggled to support a tactical system by relying on a single core team to support a tactical system when they lack the best assistance, they have all been people with their own systems, but their respective systems are aging.
Zhanku's respective talents, their own efforts, can still bring the reverie space of rapid rebound, thick eyebrows and dreams will eventually return, the Warriors may be able to hold the second place in the West, the Lakers may be able to have a thrill in the playoffs, but how far can these two teams finally go?
Even hardcore loyal fans, I'm afraid I can't shout "Warriors Championship" or "Lakers Championship" now, the reason is only those 12 words, simple and heartfelt --
"Heroes will eventually grow old, and the rivers and lakes will always be young."