Paths for LeBron, Steph and KD to win the title

When Michael Jordan scored his iconic Chicago Bulls championship-winning shot over Utah Jazz forward Bryon Russell in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, it was the end of an era in more ways than one.

Jordan was 35 when he led the Bulls in scoring in the last of their six championships. Since then, no player of that age has been a champion’s leading playoff scorer, and only one other NBA club has been coached in the postseason by someone 35 or older: the 1984-85 Los Angeles Lakers with Kareem Abdul- Jabbar at 38. . .

That’s some interesting context as the previous generation of NBA MVPs tries to add another ring to their collection. Stephen Curry, the next-oldest leading scorer by a title winner after Abdul-Jabbar and Jordan at age 34 with the 2021-22 Golden State Warriors, turned 36 on Thursday. Kevin Durant, who celebrated his 35th birthday on September 29, is now a little older than Jordan was in his last championship. And LeBron James, who some might argue offers a bubble asterisk to this statistic, would be the oldest leading scorer for a champion at 39 years old.

The three stars began the season with legitimate hopes of turning back the clock and winning another title. Now, as they fight to avoid the Western Conference play-in tournament, they look like long shots to varying degrees.

What does history tell us about his chances of hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy again?

The aging curve of NBA champions
The age distribution of the playoffs’ leading scorer on that year’s NBA champion looks a lot like what you’d expect.

The most common age is 28, about the typical peak for NBA players, with a fairly normal distribution around that point, and Abdul-Jabbar is the only outlier. Changing our perspective from leading scorer to Finals MVP adds two more players over the age of 35: Wilt Chamberlain for the 1971-72 Lakers and LeBron for the 2019-20 Lakers.

Both examples are typical of how superstars have been able to extend their championship window: by pairing with younger star players. Chamberlain was almost 36 years old in 1971-72, his penultimate season in the NBA, but he finished fourth in scoring on a Lakers team led by Gail Goodrich (29) and Jerry West (33). In the Finals, Chamberlain was able to control the paint against a New York Knicks team playing without Finals MVP center Willis Reed, averaging 19.4 points and 23.2 rebounds in the Lakers’ 4-1 victory. . in the series.

Interestingly, James took a backseat offensively to Anthony Davis during the Lakers’ 2020 title run, when he averaged 25.3 points to Davis’ 26.1 in the regular season and scored two fewer points in total. in the playoffs. en route to the title, but since then, he has surpassed AD in scoring at age 39. LeBron’s 25.1 points are slightly less than what he averaged in 2019-20, while Davis is down to 24.7 points this season.

James and Durant (averaging 28.5 points to Devin Booker’s 27.5 this season) are likely to finish as their teams’ second-leading scorers in the playoffs, if they get there. And that scenario is much more common. Four different players have been the second top scorers for champions aged 35 or older. Abdul-Jabbar (in 1981-82), James and Sam Jones for the 1968-69 Boston Celtics were 35 years old, while Tim Duncan was 38 in 2013-14 when the San Antonio Spurs won the last of their four titles with him .

That argument is much harder to make with Curry, whose 26.9 points are nearly 10 more per game than any other Warriors player. Although Curry was easily Golden State’s leading scorer during the title run, the Warriors had more balance with Klay Thompson averaging 19.0 points in the playoffs and Jordan Poole contributing 17.0 off the bench.

In search of realistic paths to the title

Durant appears to have the best chance of this group to win a championship this season. Phoenix would make the playoffs without having to go through the play-in tournament if the season ended today, and the Suns have shown more upside than the Lakers and Golden State at full strength. Phoenix is 15-10 (.600) with the trio of Durant, Booker and Bradley Beal healthy, a 50-win pace.