If you remember those Cavs-Celtics playoff series, the Celtics used to pack the paint on Lebron’s right side and dare him to go left and take contested jumpers.

That strategy is a complete fail now b/c Lebron hits those midrange jumpers going to his left with ease, and vastly improved his ability to drive left. Couple that with some excellent corner 3pt shooters on the Heat, and suddenly you realize how dangerous Lebron is. He can go left or right to the basket, pull up for jumpers on either side, or find shooters on cross-court passes. There is no one in the NBA who is the triple-threat that Lebron is. Kobe and Durant are not even close, although Durant is certainly improving himself.

Lebron also plays extremely well off the ball, constantly cutting to the rim and finding himself open for passes.
And then there’s his post game.

These are all tangible skills Lebron has worked on in the past 4 or 5 years. We all talk about work ethic..who knows which NBA player really works hard behind the scenes. But there’s no way Lebron simply picked up how to shoot 3s, pull-up jumpers, drive left, improve his ball-handling skills, and develop one of the game’s best post repetoires without working his butt off.

Wrong decade. Kobe ran the ’00s. These are the ’10s.

65% for a 36 year old, who didn’t have the fast break dunks LBJ does (but on a great team).

Oh, and that Lebron guy may make it in this league – who knew?

However, this season, he’s shooting 41.3% from 3 this year, up from 36.0% last year, 33.0% the year before, and 33.3% the year before that. That means he’s been working on his 3-point shot, and he’s getting significant results from that.

As for “long-2′s” (from 18 feet to the 3-point line), he’s shooting nearly 44%. By comparison, last year Dirk Nowitzki (one of the best shooters in the game) shot 47% on long 2-point jumpers.

What this means is that while LeBron is still athletic enough to work his way to the rim, he’s begun the demonstrating the improvement as a shooter necessary for him to continue to be an effective scorer as he ages.