LeBron James, mired in poor shooting quality, is finally showing real signs of decline as his 40th birthday approaches.

LeBron James is in the midst of one of the worst shooting slumps in history. NBA history.

In his last four games, he missed all 19 of his 3-point attempts. That’s just a hair shy of RJ Barrett’s record of 21 missed 3-pointers over a four-game span, but ultimately not all that unusual in the grand scheme of James’ career. He’s always been a bit of a gusty shooter. He won his first two MVP awards by shooting 3-pointers well below league average. His worst three-point shooting season (30.9%) since his rookie year (29.0%) came in his magical 2016 championship campaign.

The jump shot was always an advantage as far as he was concerned because in almost every other area, he was, well, lebron. You can get away with shaky shooting when you’re great at almost everything else. But the Lakers’ 109-80 loss to the Timberwolves on Monday night was the culmination of a disturbing trend, one that has given us our first real glimpse of what LeBron will be like when he’s gone. lebron.

The 0 of 4 in triples is forgivable. But James was also just 4 of 12 on 3-pointers, totaling just 10 points. He needed a free throw in the fourth quarter just to cross the double-digit scoring threshold. It’s something he’s done in 1,243 consecutive regular-season games, but it’s not as easy for him anymore. There was an 11-point outing against Phoenix earlier this season and a 12-point outing against the Thunder on Friday. James had only two games with 12 points or less last season, and one of them was a blowout in which he played less than 25 minutes. He already surpassed that figure on December 2 of this season.

Through 21 games, James is averaging 22 points. Only his rookie average of 20.9 was lower. He’s been above 25 every year since – until now – and his playing time is almost identical to what it was a year ago. However, the volume is not as concerning as the underlying efficiencies. The numbers actually suggest that the Lakers would do better if they had less LeBron but got a better version of him while he’s out there: The Lakers have posted a staggering 15.9 points per 100 possessions improvement with James off the court .

LeBron finally shows physical limitations as he approaches 40

What’s scarier for the Lakers is that James no longer seems superhuman in the way he always seemed superhuman. It is no longer an unstoppable freight train in transition, for example. It still ranks eighth in the NBA in terms of total fast break points per game it is 4.3, but it is still a sharp decrease from recent years. It was at 5.1 a year ago and 6.2 a year before that.

Its efficiency has also decreased. Occupies the 54th percentile in the NBA in terms of points per possession in transition, according to Synergy Sports. That’s the lowest point of his career.

James has emphasized transition scoring in recent years in part to mask minor dips in his half-court explosion. But now the physical limitations that come with approaching 40 are starting to become more and more evident on the stat sheet. For example, in the restricted zone he shoots 67.9%. Again, pretty good in a vacuum, a far cry from where it’s been even in the recent past. He was at 73.3% a year ago and has been in the mid-70s during his tenure with the Lakers, except in the 2019-20 championship season, when the Lakers consciously limited his space to have two big men on defense. That’s not a tradeoff this year’s team is making. He is making just 52.9% of his field goals with drives this season. It was at 59.8% last season.

The Timberwolves game included some pretty jarring calls by James’s lofty standards. In this series, James struggles to get a clean runner through contact, but what’s more concerning is seeing the freebie miss the offensive rebound.

His ability to separate himself from imbalances has also decreased significantly. Naz Reid, a big man, follows him down the court during this block.

Where does LeBron go from here?

Rumors about James’ decline have been greatly exaggerated before. Remember the calls for the Lakers to trade him after they missed the playoffs in his first season in Los Angeles? If you look closely enough, you can find skepticism since his return to Cleveland in 2014-15, and that’s a testament to the remarkably high standard he’s set over the past 22 years.

But his improvement as a 3-point shooter was supposed to protect him against any kind of steep decline. He made 41% of his three-pointers a season ago and his volume had steadily increased during his tenure with the Lakers. First-year Lakers coach JJ Redick has spoken openly about wanting James to shoot more 3-pointers than in the past, not less. But in his career, the jumpers have been the cherry on top, not the ice cream, and right now it looks like the ice cream is finally starting to melt.

That doesn’t mean we can expect many more 10-, 11-, and 12-point performances in the near future. Those are still the outliers, and even if LeBron isn’t fully lebron From night to night, he’s still largely a good player. He’s not nearly the defender he used to be, but he’s still at least a good scorer and a great playmaker who rebounds much better than most at his position. The worst version of LeBron is still better than most of his peers.

That’s just a surprising drop for someone who, in his heyday, really had no peers. This could be the decline of a forty-year-old James. The accumulated skill and experience that has come with two decades of dominance could mean that he will remain a very effective player overall until he retires, but the weight those two decades have put on his body means that he can no longer maximize them the way he does. in which he did it. I could even a year or two ago.

He’s as good as a soon-to-be 40-year-old can be, but we’re finally starting to see the limits of how good any soon-to-be 40-year-old can really be. Now he’s deadly and vulnerable on the wrong nights. Monday was one of those nights, and now that I’m just a few weeks away from turning 40, there will probably be more of them than ever in the future.