LeBron James had his best performance of the early part of his 17th NBA season and while his play indicates that he’s far from passing the torch to the next generation, his matchup against 20-year old Dallas Mavericks phenom Luka Doncic.
James and Doncic had what was likely the best matchup of the early season with both players notching triple doubles on the night and scoring over 30 points to lead their teams in scoring. James came close to 40 points and while Doncic was incredible in his own right, he appeared to slow down in the final minutes of the game after suffering a head-to-head collision.
Nevertheless, James was impressed by the performance from Doncic. The night also involved several one-on-one match-ups between the two do-it-all wings, giving Friday night viewers quite the treat. Thanks to USA TODAY’s Matt Eppers, we have some NSFW video of LeBron showing just how much respect he had for Doncic.
James already had a ton of respect for Doncic, signing a jersey for him last season and talking about his game in reverential tones even before they’d played against each other. For the sake of basketball fans everywhere, we have to hope we will have many more of these match-ups before LeBron decides to hang it up.
