READ SOME OF THE LISTS, THEY NAMIN ALL-TIME
Top 5 Basketball IQ
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READ SOME OF THE LISTS, THEY NAMIN ALL-TIME
Gil Scott-Heroin
Veteran
That kid Jokic's court awareness is unreal.
And Rondo aint got a high bb IQ?
And Rondo aint got a high bb IQ?
That's a great list, pretty much the same ones I have. But....
I always wonder if the best bball IQ's in the game aren't actually some short unathletic scrubs on the end of the bench that can't do crap and manage to survive in the NBA on bball IQ alone.
I mean, Draymond, Bron, and Jokic are all 6'7" plus...it would be too big a coincidence for all the tallest people to just happen to have the top bball IQ, right? And Rondo has tremendous bball IQ but he's also a great athlete with crazy wingspan and hands. Ain't there gonna be some fantastic basketball minds trapped in small and/or unathletic bodies?
I disagree with that whole first list, but Kobe and Curry best decision-making for the context what? The same Curry who throws sloppy turnovers trying to get fancy in crunch time and the same Kobe who calls his own number regardless of the situation?
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FunkDoc1112
Heavily Armed
Kobe has a high IQ but he's such a lunatic it goes out the window in regards to his own offense
That's a great list, pretty much the same ones I have. But....
I always wonder if the best bball IQ's in the game aren't actually some short unathletic scrubs on the end of the bench that can't do crap and manage to survive in the NBA on bball IQ alone.
I mean, Draymond, Bron, and Jokic are all 6'7" plus...it would be too big a coincidence for all the tallest people to just happen to have the top bball IQ, right? And Rondo has tremendous bball IQ but he's also a great athlete with crazy wingspan and hands. Ain't there gonna be some fantastic basketball minds trapped in small and/or unathletic bodies.
I disagree with that whole first list, but Kobe and Curry best decision-making for the context what? The same Curry who throws sloppy turnovers trying to get fancy in crunch time and the same Kobe who calls his own number regardless of the situation?
Kobe a genius and he also wants the crown. So it's different.
FunkDoc1112
Heavily Armed
Oh yeah for sure, that's why most scrubs tend to make great coaches. There's so much that they observe and have to account for that more talented guys don't have to.That's a great list, pretty much the same ones I have. But....
I always wonder if the best bball IQ's in the game aren't actually some short unathletic scrubs on the end of the bench that can't do crap and manage to survive in the NBA on bball IQ alone.
I mean, Draymond, Bron, and Jokic are all 6'7" plus...it would be too big a coincidence for all the tallest people to just happen to have the top bball IQ, right? And Rondo has tremendous bball IQ but he's also a great athlete with crazy wingspan and hands. Ain't there gonna be some fantastic basketball minds trapped in small and/or unathletic bodies.
I disagree with that whole first list, but Kobe and Curry best decision-making for the context what? The same Curry who throws sloppy turnovers trying to get fancy in crunch time and the same Kobe who calls his own number regardless of the situation?
Most talented players who coach tend to use super basic, one dimensional offenses because they lack that same perspective. Point guards are usually an exception.
Columbo
Lieutenant
LeBron
Kawhi
Steph Curry
Cp3
Horford (hate to say it, he's not the most athletic player at this point but manages to impact the game every possible way)
Kawhi
Steph Curry
Cp3
Horford (hate to say it, he's not the most athletic player at this point but manages to impact the game every possible way)
Make an all time list without MJ or Kobe stupid idiot brehs
Exactly. That's why the criteria didn't make sense. I agree that Kobe had a high bball IQ, but if you define it as "best decision making in the context", then Kobe don't work anymore.
It's actually really easy.LeBron
Kawhi
Steph Curry
Cp3
Horford (hate to say it, he's not the most athletic player at this point but manages to impact the game every possible way)
Make an all time list without MJ or Kobe stupid idiot brehs
CP3-Duncan-Kidd-LeBron-Nash means
doesn't get top-5 even in his own era. 
With Pippen there its a decent argument whether Jordan was even the highest IQ player on his own team. And his era also had Magic, Bird, Isiah, Stockton.
That's a fantastic proof of the theory.
Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Jerry Sloan, George Karl, Doc Rivers, Don Nelson, Larry Brown, Rick Carlisle, Mike D'Antoni, Steve Kerr...none of them were stars like that when they played.
Columbo
Lieutenant
Shut up you little bytch. You been getting on nikkas nuts alot, I don't allow that to happen to me. My balls are faggit proof. I'm not even gonna respond to your nonsense, fukk outta here clownIt's actually really easy.
CP3-Duncan-Kidd-LeBron-Nash means
With Pippen there its a decent argument whether Jordan was even the highest IQ player on his own team. And his era also had Magic, Bird, Isiah, Stockton.
NYC Rebel
...on the otherside of the pond
I’d put Walt Frazier over Mutumbo
The Connoisseurs
Superstar
Some of these lists or horrible also
But like most said
Rajon.. Bron cp.. dray and then I got Kevin love
Ben and lonzo are already up there though
Wade had it but he takes stupid lazy chances on D That leads to a men open
By the baseline .. he be forgetting he not in the heatles no more where everyone is on their A-game on D and you can set those “open traps”
But like most said
Rajon.. Bron cp.. dray and then I got Kevin love
Ben and lonzo are already up there though
Wade had it but he takes stupid lazy chances on D That leads to a men open
By the baseline .. he be forgetting he not in the heatles no more where everyone is on their A-game on D and you can set those “open traps”
LeBron basketball IQ? For what, passing the ball or joining and creating Superteam
You watch the game and THIS STUFF is what LeBron is doing night in and night out. Reading every play, making the right pass or the right move, finding the way to score that makes it look easy.
LeBron James's greatest weapon is his brain
It's a midgame timeout during a 2013-14 regular-season game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, long before James decided to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the national television broadcast means it's longer than usual.
Erik Spoelstra is sitting in front of his Heat players on the bench as he traces a play on his dry-erase board with a fading blue marker. The players – Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Ray Allen and Udonis Haslem -- are draped in towels, holding cups of water, waiting for Spoelstra to present his play. James is quiet, holding clippers, working on cleaning up the nails on his left hand.
Only he's not.
"No," James says to Spoelstra, reaching his hand out and touching the board on Spoelstra's lap, pointing to something. "He has to be here, like this." James traces his finger along the surface. He has been in this situation before against the Pacers. The Heat have tried this play. He has an instant alteration in mind. James is animated now, having forgotten his nails, as he presents his case for why this way will work.
Spoelstra grabs his eraser.
Another huddle now, earlier in the season, and the Heat are having troubling dealing with pick-and-roll coverage. A candid discussion has broken out among players and coaches about what changes to make in the middle of the game.
"Let's do it this way," James tells his teammates, "like we did in Game 3 against Dallas."
The change is made. Later, Spoelstra will find himself reviewing the moment, searching his memories, and he'll realize the Heat did indeed play that way against Dallas. "I was like, c'mon, that was from a game three years ago," Spoelstra says, before raising his fingers and making a crisp snap. "And he recalled it just like that."
It's the middle of February now, in a game against the Golden State Warriors, and James is walking the ball down the floor with the seconds running out. The Heat are down two points and he's dribbling the final nine seconds off the clock with ace defender Andre Iguodala guarding him. James fakes a drive, then steps back and to his left in time to fire in a game-winning 3-pointer over Iguodala's fingers with 0.1 seconds left.
In the jovial postgame locker room, it's pointed out to James by a reporter that almost exactly five years earlier, he'd won a game with a jumper at Oracle Arena at the buzzer from virtually the same exact spot at the same basket.
"Not really," James says in response. "That one was probably about six feet closer to the baseline and inside the 3-point arc. It was over Ronny Turiaf, I stepped back on him but I crossed him over first and got him on his heels. I'm sure of it. It was down the sideline a few feet. It was a side out-of-bounds play; this one we brought up."
Within moments, James is watching that very 2009 highlight on a cell phone while icing his aching feet. And indeed, there it is -- the crossover step-back on Turiaf from, oh, about six feet to the left of the shot he'd just hit over Iguodala. Right along the sideline inside the 3-point line. A side out-of-bounds play. Just like he said.
He is 6-foot-8 or so, and 260 pounds or so. He has striking athleticism even while in a crowd of some of the greatest athletes on the planet. He has a strong work ethic that manifests itself in expansive summer programs that are at the heart of the steady development of his game over the years. He is ambidextrous, playing right-handed but doing most other things in his life left-handed, a trait that has helped him become one of the great scorers in league history. He has an expansive interest in the history of the game, which he uses both as a teaching resource and to generate motivation in a time where he has very few true contemporaries.
There is all of that. But there is also one other quality, one that James himself has somehow managed to keep hidden for the past decade, despite our seemingly insatiable desire to uncover -- and wring dry -- most everything about the man: the memory. It is perhaps one of James' greatest gifts. And while those who watch James are typically impressed with how he uses his speed and skill to generate highlight plays, those who know James or spend a lot of time with him are more frequently blown away by the almost curious power of his mind.
The memory. It can inform him. It can engage him. It can turn on him. It can attack him. It can, he says, hinder him in ways that are far harder to treat than a sprained ankle. And learning to control it has been a fight as great as any other in his career.
"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."
It's 2012, and James is asked after a game to name the most memorable dunks in his career. Listing them quickly off the top of his head -- his slam on poor Damon Jones, or when he leaped over the top of John Lucas III -- is not all that impressive. The Rolling Stones will never forget the words and chords to "Gimme Shelter." Most players remember their greatest hits. What's remarkable is everything else: His ability, that day, to recall who was guarding the player who threw him an alley-oop pass from across the floor (James' favorite alley-oop came on a pass from Daniel Gibson over the arms of Antonio Daniels, he says). Or how an opponent might have gotten away with a hand-check foul on the play before a dunk four years earlier (these often involve Kevin Garnett).
"Sometimes when we come into our morning meetings on game days NBA TV will be on and there will be some classic game on," Heat guard Mario Chalmers says. "LeBron will take one look at it and know what game it is. He'll be like, 'Oh, that's Game 2 of the '97 Finals,' before they even put it on the screen."
Consider: After the University of Connecticut won the national championship in April, James made a point to compliment Huskies coach and former teammate Kevin Ollie on the accomplishment. "He still looks the same in a suit on the sideline coaching for the Huskies as he did for us wearing No. 12," James said.
Ollie played with James for one season: his rookie year in 2003-04 in Cleveland. He played for 13 teams in his career and wore seven different numbers. And yes, a review of the historical record shows, Ollie did indeed wear No. 12 for the Cavs.
"Look, we're all professional basketball players, so when LeBron remembers something from a basketball game, even if it's from a few years ago, it doesn't exactly blow me away," Bosh says. "But it's when he remembers other stuff, like stuff he shouldn't even know, where you're like, 'What?!' We'll be watching a football game and he'll be like, 'Yeah, that cornerback was taken in the fourth round of the 2008 draft from Central Florida,' or something. And I'll be like, 'How do you know that?' And he'll be like, 'I can't help it.'"
So what does it mean? What it seems to suggest -- at least the part of it that James will discuss -- is that if you give up the baseline to James on a drive in November 2011 and he's playing against you in March 2013, the Heat small forward will remember it. It means that if you tried to change your pick-and-roll coverage in the middle of the fourth quarter of the 2008 playoffs, he'll be ready for you to try it again in 2014, even if you're coaching a different team. It also means that if you had a good game the last time you played against Milwaukee because James got you a few good looks in the first quarter, the next time you play the Bucks you can count on James looking for you early in the game. Because, you know, the memory never forgets.
"I can usually remember plays in situations a couple of years back -- quite a few years back sometimes," James says. "I'm able to calibrate them throughout a game to the situation I'm in, to know who has it going on our team, what position to put him in.
"I'm lucky to have a photographic memory," he will add, "and to have learned how to work with it."
If there's one thing that can be said about the study of the human brain -- and especially the field of memory -- it's that even today, it's notable less for what is known than for how much is not known. The workings of our head-sponges remain, for the most part, a mystery. But if there are areas of consensus in the field of neurology, one of them is that the notion of "photographic memory," in which a person can take mental snapshots and recall every detail at a later time, has never been proved to exist.
This is not to say that James is lying when he describes his total recall. The evidence appears strong that his memory banks are loaded up like Fort Knox. Rather, what James might be describing appears more likely to be a version of "eidetic memory," which is, essentially, the medical term for crazy, crazy freakish recall. And although eidetic memory appears to take many forms -- some claim to be able to "read" pages in their mind, others to "replay" their memories as if pressing play on streaming video -- those who claim the ability often share one trait: They are as cursed by it as they are blessed by it.