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Comment by wallflower | Hacker News Reader

LeBron James is arguably the greatest player of his modern era (Wilt Chamberlain did not have as much competition), if not all time.

Yes, he has tremendous physical gifts and dexterity.

What most people don't know is he has an almost uncanny eidetic memory that allows him to truly know how the other players on a team have played against him or his team in the past without studying game video ipso facto... and also whup them at Madden.

> "When I was a kid my coaches started to say to me that I remembered things that happened in games from a few tournaments back -- and that surprised them," James says. "I started to realize how important that could be years later, probably when I was in high school. And then, eventually, I realized that it can get me into trouble."

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Besides his physical and mental talents, he's also an incredibly dedicated worker and has also embraced a lot of innovative playing, training and recovery ideas that has helped him extend his peak physical years beyond where they normally are.

One of the surprising things I heard about last year was that the newer basketball cameras that record all aspects of play rated him as one of (maybe even the) slowest players in the game. Of course, if you've ever watched him run, especially on a chase-down block (such as the one he did in the 2016 NBA Finals game 7), you'd know he's one of the fastest players in the league. However, he's figured out ways to be effective without moving that much so he preserves energy.

At age 33 last season, he played every single game of the regular season, plus 22 playoff games. He's made the NBA finals eight years in a row, which would be roughly the equivalent of 2 additional regular seasons, though playoff basketball is substantially more physically demanding, so the physical strain would be more than just 2 additional seasons.

I think ultimately, the longevity of his dominance, coupled with how talented the rest of the league has been during his tenure, will be the factor that makes him the best player of all time.

Yep, this right here. You can tell he is a step slower than his prime. But it doesn't matter because he is so much more efficient that he plays almost better than he did in his prime. I've been watching basketball a long time and I have only seen very few B level and big men do this change. But most of the time it is out of necessity from some previous injury.

LeBron also has very healthy body mechanics, which is an underrated part of durability. The difference between more durable and less durable players isn’t only down to conditioning and training and genetics; an NBA player jumps and lands, cuts and stops, and generally subjects his body to the limits of what it can withstand. Constantly and repeatedly doing that in biomechanically vulnerable ways (bracing the knees inward, trying to stick one-footed landings, landing on the heels, letting the knees translate in front of the toes) will absolutely wear down and break any player.

I wouldn't discount him just being more durable as a result of his build. He's 6'8" and 250lbs, which is on the more muscular side for the NBA.

I'm 6'6" and have been anywhere from 180-320lbs as an adult (currently about 290lbs), with the range being due to adding significant muscle mass as a result of weight lifting. I can tell you that I am much more durable at my current weight than I was at 180lbs. Bumps and falls that woulda hurt a lot in past just aren't a big deal any more.

LeBron’s size and body composition helps a hell of a lot, but good body mechanics—especially landing mechanics—get more important, not less, as a player gets bigger and stronger, because the amount of landing energy he has to dissipate grows in proportion to those factors.

Agree 100% that mechanics are important for things like landing jumps. Body composition is probably more important for most other sources of injury, though. After all, it's hard to have proper mechanics when you collide with somebody unexpectedly, or when you land on your side because somebody knocked your legs out from under you.

To see this point proven, watch video of Derrick Rose's movements and landings.

While we're on the topic, I wonder if anyone has started using computer vision to inform players of their movements and avoid injuries.

Here's a great breakdown of Rose's poor body mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_rdO8OLHZo

That's really interesting, thanks!

I recall an interview recently where he estimated he spent (of his own money, not just efforts with the team) about $1M/year maintaining his body.

fivethirtyeight did a similar analysis of Messi going into the world cup and found he covered less distance than most players, but somehow managed to create more separation with the defence than anyone else.

I think it would be common across all sports to find the true elite players do something fundamentally different from everyone else. I would also place a large bet the thing they do that makes them elite would be something coaches at lower levels (or even the elite level) would be trying to train out of them trying to extract even more performance.

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