King James scored a season-high 47 points in Atlanta Friday.
Star Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James impressed legendary Showtime-era Lakers small forward James Worthy with his highlight reel-worthy performance against the Atlanta Hawks in a 130-121 win Friday.
LeBron poured in a whopping 47 points on 18-of-27 shooting from the floor and 7-of-9 shooting from the charity stripe. The 18-time All-Star logged a near triple-double, grabbing 10 rebounds and dishing out nine assists.
Big Game James, himself a seven-time All-Star, three-time champion, 1988 Finals MVP and Hall of Famer, is now a commentator for LA game broadcasts on Spectrum SportsNet. He used the platform to heap praise on LBJ, who turned 38 Friday.
“It was his birthday, and I mean he’s on a tear right now, and he wanted to make sure with family and friends [in attendance] that they came up with a win,” Worthy raved. “When you predict 40 before the game [as James did] that’s saying a lot.”
“He just continues to impress me with the way he continues to dominate games. He’s playing against younger guys… And he’s shooting threes with confidence [he shot 4-of-6 from deep].”
“He goes to the hole with a whole lot of soul,” Worthy said. “The boy is bad, that’s all I got to see. He might be badder than Shaft. I thought that Shaft was a bad man but LeBron made me shut my mouth tonight. That was a good win, and it was a good team win.”
James is in relatively uncharted terrain in terms of his prolific scoring output in year 20 of his NBA career. Per StatMuse, James, averaging 28.5 points a night, is leagues ahead of the next highest-scoring NBA player in year 20, former Lakers great Kobe Bryant, who averaged an inefficient 17.6 during his 20th, and final, NBA season in 2015-16.