Warriors coach Steve Kerr was thinking about the Cavaliers' LeBron James on his drive to Oracle Arena for their nationally televised Christmas Day game.
Kerr wasn't consumed by defensive assignments or second-guessing his plan. He was pondering James' greatness and marveling at his improvement even though James was just five days from his 33rd birthday.
"How many players are better in year 15 than in year 10? And especially when you're talking about superstars," Kerr said that day. "Anyone can do their own rankings, where LeBron ranks among the all-time greats. Go down the list: Michael, Bird, Magic, Wilt, Kareem, Bill Russell. A lot of them didn't even get to 15 years. Were any of them better in year 15 than in year 10? I can't imagine.
"What he has done with his game is just incredible. He's always been the dominant, physical force from year one. But the skill at this point is better than it's ever been. You always have to contend with him in many ways. It feels like you have to contend with him in even more ways now."
It seems fitting that James became the seventh player in NBA history to reach 30,000 career points in the same season that he's turned back the clock. Until Christmas, he was among the leading candidates for league's MVP, an honor he has won four times, but not since 2013.
James passed the 30,000-point barrier with a 20-foot jumper from the left wing with 1.1 seconds to go in the first quarter of Tuesday's game at the San Antonio Spurs. At 33 years and 24 days, he is the youngest player to reach the milestone.
Always driven to improve, James continues to confound opposing coaches. Before Tuesday's game, he was shooting .553 from the field and .362 from 3-point range. The former was his best since he returned to Cleveland in 2014, the latter just off his .363 from last season that was his best in James 2.0.
A difficult month has dropped his averages to 26.8 points, 7.8 rebounds and 8.7 assists, but it's still not out of the question that he could average a triple-double for the season.
As the Cavs hosted Oklahoma City on Saturday afternoon, Thunder coach Billy Donovan remembered first seeing James as a sophomore at St. Vincent-St. Mary while Donovan was coaching the University of Florida.
Donovan said he's always thought the best part of James' game was his passing ability, struck by the way James always found the open man no matter who was on the other end of the play.
But Donovan thought back to the hype already surrounding James then and marveled at what James has become.
"I couldn't believe how talented and how good he was," Donovan said. "But the thing that's remarkable about him in my opinion ... you see a lot of times young kids that are sophomores with his ability _ maybe not all of his ability _ but you see talented players. They never get better. A lot of times it's difficult to get better because there's such a micro�scope.
"The thing that's amazing to me is he's had a lot of attention on him at a very, very young age and he always got better. That was a great tribute to him and who he is as a player."
