I'm back...and talking about LeBron and scoring titles

I am back from my vacation, as we had company in our home this past weekend (Chad Shumway) and also work at The Roanoke Times has been pretty busy lately, with the NCAA tournament, Virginia Tech in the NIT and high school spring sports beginning. 
Anyway, I'm planning on blogging regularly again, and I hope I still have readers. Enough about my boring life and on to stuff that matters:

I was reading this post on the Cleveland sports blog WaitingForNextYear.com: http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/?p=26454
It talks about LeBron James' comments Thursday regarding being in a race with Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant for the scoring title. On this topic, LeBron said:

“If I really wanted to win a scoring title, I could do it every year — every single year — but it doesn’t matter.”


When LeBron says "it doesn't matter" he is saying that the team's success matters more to him than individual award, which is a good thing. The premise here is that if he wanted to, LeBron could probably score 40-50 points per game by taking any shot at any time, disregarding his teammates, the game situation and all of those factors. That's not the proper way to play basketball. LeBron excels when he gets teammates involved. When his assists are up and turnover are down, the Cavs almost always win. This is obvious to anyone who has ever watched him play. The Cavs have so many options on offense now, LeBron doesn't have to score 40 points per game for the team to win. But, if he wanted to he could. That's what he's saying here. He cares more about winning. I think this applies to any star in the NBA, whether it's Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant or LeBron. Any of these guys can score 40 per game, but often that isn't the best formula for winning. Sometimes it is, and when that is the case players of this caliber can take over the game and put the team on their backs. LeBron has done this a few times this season, but it seems as though those games are less now than they were in LeBron's second and third years in the league. That is a direct reflection of the talent this current Cavs team has. After all, they did beat the Spurs without LeBron and Antawn Jamison (he missed most of that game).


Speaking of the Spurs, the Cavs play them tonight. Going into the game, LeBron is averaging 29.8 points per game. Durant is at 29.7 points per game. LeBron has one scoring title to his credit, the 2007-08 season when he averaged 30.0 ppg. His career high ppg was 31.4 in the 2005-06 season. 
Fast-forwarding to this season, I wouldn't be surprised to see his scoring average actually dip. Once the Cavs lock up the No. 1 overall seed for the playoffs, LeBron will probably be sitting in the fourth quarters of games, assuming the Cavs continue to play at their current, high level. But, as LBJ said, it doesn't matter. It's all about the wins.

* Photo courtesy of Getty Images