For the Avengers Team, the mission for their Paris Olympic campaign was simple- get the gold or be remembered as a bust! To no one’s surprise, LeBron James and Co. executed the mission to perfection, but this time it was much, much different. Go back to 2004. A rookie LeBron James, in his true sense, had the experienced heads of Stephon Marbury, Tim Duncan, and Allen Iverson around him. In 2008, the charismatic Kobe Bryant took over as LeBron and Carmelo Anthony came of age.

What about 2012? Kobe was there to lead, and Melo and Kevin Durant bore the scoring burden along with LeBron. But when he ended his 12-year self-exile to return for one last ride this year, he was the veteran experience, the backbone of the team, and the orchestrator of the band. Was that too much for him? Arguments were flanged about it, whether LeBron ran out of steam.

That concern about LeBron’s supposed decline is rummaging through the NBA world, but an LA Lakers insider is not fuzzing over it. The man in question, Jason Timpf allayed those fears about LeBron’s decline on his Hoops Tonight podcast. “LeBron is still yet to miss a single playoff game in his entire career. So the idea that he can’t hold up for a 2-month playoff run is completely theoretical,” Timpf stated. This came after a message said, “He looked fantastic in the Olympics, but that was not as much of a grinder as the conference finals and finals. Even in the Olympics, he was losing steam by the end of the gold medal game.”

In the gold medal game, the final quarter of the game was taken over by Curry and his 3-point chugging flurry. So can’t fault anyone for missing out on LeBron’s massive dunk at 5:25 of the 4th quarter. During the NBA Mailbag segment, Timpf further added, “It’s based on like he’s old, maybe he won’t do it, but we’ve never actually seen him not be able to do it. In 2023, he got hurt and he played on it and he still averaged 25, 107 on 58% true shooting. And he got stronger as the playoffs went, went on in the Nuggets series. He averaged 28, 10, and 10 and shot 52% from the field.”

The statistics show that LeBron James looked far from being the veteran presence that was carried by his peers. He led the Lakers scoring (27.8 PPG) in the 4-1 series loss, tying with Anthony Davis, a guy 8 years younger. Even in Team USA, LeBron put a stamp on the game with his authority averaging 14.2 points thanks to his 21-pointer opening game and the historical triple-double in the semi-final. So Timpf had enough reasons to discard the creeping doubts over LeBron’s decline.

Jason Timpf explains LeBron James’ NBA season trajectory with one key aspect

If someone makes a list of the most difficult leagues in the world to win, the NBA surely would make the cut. The last repeat winners came in the last decade with the Golden State Warriors, showing the level of competition in the league. The 82 regular season games with back-to-backs and the relentless playoffs demand mind and body’s peak performance and LeBron James has his way of doing it.

According to Timpf, “He (LeBron) definitely conserves energy in the regular season.” In the last 5 editions, LeBron has missed a combined 116 games in the regular season. Compared to that, he missed zero games in the playoffs in the 4 times the Lakers qualified. Managing his minutes and load has been the set trend for the 4-time champ and that’s probably the best way to go in his quest for his 5th championship.