Watch the Throne, LeBron
While the King shows no signs of relinquishing the ‘Best Player Alive’ Championship Belt, Giannis is closing in.
After asserting his limitless ceiling through the first month of the 2016–17 NBA season, Giannis Antetokounmpo arrived on November 29. The 22 year-old unicorn went toe to-toe with the best player of his generation — LeBron James — making his rapid ascent impossible to ignore. At the time, LeBron may have overlooked Giannis, and rightfully so, considering he was only the most recent, in a long list of up-and-comers, to be considered LeBron’s potential successor. That night, Giannis took it to LeBron with a confidence we’d never seen from an unproven talent — finishing with 34 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, five steals, and two blocks. LeBron’s play (22 points, four rebounds, and four assists) encapsulated how (not) serious he viewed the threat. He made sure it’d be the last time he was caught unprepared.
Three weeks later, LeBron brought his A-game against Giannis and the Bucks. In a Cavs’ win, LeBron hit the game-winning 3 — finishing with 34 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists, one steal, and one block, in 47 minutes of play. In their rubber-match the next night, LeBron kept his foot on the gas, carrying the Cavs to another win with 29 points, nine rebounds, and six assists. Two meaningless games one-third of the way into the season, they were not, as felt by an underlying significance. By forcing LeBron to defend his throne, in a regular season game, no less, Giannis had proven his potential as a superduperstar. Most importantly, though, he became the favorite to dethrone LeBron — sooner, rather than later.
Basketball fans are obsessed with tracking NBA eras by a lineage of transcendent stars. We’re transfixed by the rare few who ascend higher than their peers, reaching a level where they’re considered the undisputed alpha-dog of their generation. This torch-passing narrative has engulfed the league for the past four decades. Bird occupied the throne during the first-half of the 1980s before relinquishing power to Magic, who was subsequently usurped by MJ. After MJ’s dominance in the 1990s, the ‘Best Player Alive’ Championship-Belt changed hands for a few years, until Kobe cemented his superiority in the mid-2000s. At the time of Kobe’s absolute Apex, LeBron’s brilliance made it impossible to argue who had ‘next.’
Around 2009, LeBron took over the throne, a position he’s owned for the last eight years. This didn’t stop us from trying to find his heir. After battling LeBron in the 2012 Finals, 23 year-old Kevin Durant was tapped as the next face of the league. Despite possessing all of the attributes of an era-defining superstar, Durant’s prime coincided with LeBron’s on-going reign. Five years later, LeBron’s stranglehold on the crown has only been threatened twice — Curry’s back-to-back MVPs and Durant’s performance in last year’s Finals. Still, the consensus hasn’t changed — LeBron is King.
In recent years, we began looking at the next generation for potential usurpers. Following the 2014 Finals, we settled on Kawhi Leonard; after making ‘the leap’ in 2015, Anthony Davis was the odds-on favorite; heading into last season, KAT was the obvious front-runner. Despite their potential, you couldn’t help but feel we were forcing the NEXT ‘Best Player Alive’ label, instead of waiting for it to come to fruition. Last year, Giannis began to fit the mold. Initially, it didn’t stick, in large part because his career trajectory hasn’t mirrored that of his predecessors. Before Magic and Bird stepped onto an NBA court, they were considered saviors; by MJ’s third-year, it was clear he was destined for once-in-a-lifetime greatness; although Kobe’s ascent took time, he was always thought of as the future; while LeBron was regarded as such before finishing high-school.
This isn’t to say that Giannis came to prominence overnight, far from it. Rather, Giannis’ ascendance has been gradual, yet steep. In 2014, he was a rookie defined by raw athleticism; the following year, Giannis showed superstar flashes, while averaging (12.7 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 2.6 APG, 1.0 SPG, 0.9 BPG); by 2016, the Greek Freak was unleashed, regarded for his ability to fill the stat-sheet while finishing with averages of (16.9 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 4.3 APG, 1.4 BPG, 1.3 SPG).
In his fourth-season last year, 22 year-old Giannis made ‘the leap.’ Quadruple-doubles were no longer fantastical visions, rather a nightly possibility — realized by a December 31 game against Chicago in which he dropped 39 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, seven blocks, and two steals. Possessing the length of Durant, along with the strength and freakish athleticism of a young LeBron, Giannis transformed into the most terrifyingly dominant player since LeBron. Every game brought with it the possibility of seeing something for the first time. He became a human highlight-reel, i.e. “Giannis Antetokounmpo insane Eurostep dunk,” “Giannis with a Eurostep Posterizer on Ibaka,” “Giannis 3-point line to dunk in two steps,” “Giannis Antetokounmpo with the Huge Block & Fastbreak Assist.” Simply, Giannis became the first player since LeBron to ascend to a level in which the night-to-night ceiling is removed.
Heading into this season, Giannis is coming off his first All-NBA (Second-Team) selection, after finishing with (22.9 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 5.4 APG, 1.6 SPG, 1.9 BPG). Two months shy of his 23rd birthday, he’s presumably on the cusp of another leap. For a point of comparison, let’s look at LeBron at the same period of his career. LeBron made ‘the leap’ at 21 years-old. That season, he was selected to the All-NBA Second-Team, while averaging (27.2 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 7.2 APG, 2.2 SPG, 0.7 BPG). The following year, at 22 years-old, LeBron reached another level, averaging (31.4 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 6.6 APG, 1.6 SPG, 0.8 BPG), as he made his first All-NBA First-Team and finished second in MVP voting.
Sure, Giannis might not match those averages, which is reasonable, considering LeBron will go down as the second-best player in all-time, but the simple fact that we’re having the conversation proves Giannis’ limitless potential. This past summer, he became a dark horse MVP candidate, with a First-Team All-NBA selection all-but etched in stone. Through his first game of the season, Giannis hasn’t given us a reason to think otherwise. In an eight-point victory over Boston, he dropped 37 points on 59.1 percent shooting, to go along with 13 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals. It was exactly what you expected from Giannis, filled with breath-taking strides in transition, posterizing dunks, and otherworldly passing. His performance was reminiscent of those early LeBron years, when he seemed to level-up every year, a time when potential and youth made anything possible. Giannis might not be there yet, but damn, is he getting close.
