LeBron James praise from Lakers guard Austin Reaves over poster dunk needs to be fact checked

LeBron James is old. But is he truly as old as Austin Reaves makes him out to be?

In a bit of masterful man management, the Los Angeles Lakers held out LeBron James on the first night of a back-to-back set (and came away with a win) so that he'd be fresh in his return on Wednesday night against the Memphis Grizzlies. Indeed, the rest appeared to do James a world of good. In the first quarter of what ended up being a 136-124 win for the Lakers, James looked like he was shot out of a cannon when he posterized Scotty Pippen Jr. on an alley-oop pass from Austin Reaves.

LEBRON JUST MURDERED SCOTTY PIPPEN JR 😳😳 pic.twitter.com/9ZaODE80cm

— 𝐉𝐚𝐤𝐞 (@SixthManJake) March 28, 2024

James looked spry, which is no mean feat seeing as he's in his 21st season in the NBA. Reaves even joked that the Lakers star didn't look his age (39 years old), per Mike Trudell of Spectrum SportsNet. But it wasn't all that Reaves quipped about. Per Trudell, Reaves also told James that he now had “dunked on Scottie Pippen and his son!”

LeBron James might be a geriatric man by NBA standards, but did he really get a chance to posterize the Chicago Bulls legend who was the Robin to Michael Jordan's Batman in their six title wins in the 1990s?

Fact-checking Austin Reaves' quip

Austin Reaves is right in thinking that LeBron James and Scottie Pippen's careers, at least, did intersect. James entered the league as one of the most hyped-up draft prospects of all time in 2003, while Pippen, despite being on his last legs, was still an active player during the 2003-04 campaign, returning to the Bulls for his final season.

However, despite playing in 37 games in his swan song in the Windy City, Pippen never got a chance to share the court in the NBA with the Lakers star. The Cleveland Cavaliers are in the same division with the Bulls, so they have four games against each other every season, but Pippen was not able to suit up in any of those matchups.

During the 2003-04 season, the Cavs and Bulls faced each other on December 20 and 26, 2003 as well as on March 1 and March 16, 2004. Alas, Scottie Pippen was injured, so the rookie version of LeBron James did not get a chance to put him on a poster.

Of course, Austin Reaves may be saying that in jest, busting James' chops since he's the oldest active player in the NBA. The Lakers guard may as well joke about James posterizing a velociraptor for that matter. But it truly does boggle the mind that James, who was in the NBA during Pippen's final season, is still playing at a high enough level for him to posterize the Bulls legend's son, who was born in 2000 — when James was already 16 and tearing up the nets for the St. Vincent-St. Mary High School.

LeBron James and the Lakers still in the six-seed bubble

The Lakers may have been a middling team ever since winning the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, and yet here they are, still with a fighting chance to make the playoffs outright as the six-seed. After their sweep of the back-to-back set against the Milwaukee Bucks and Grizzlies, LeBron James and company now stand just 2.5 games behind the Dallas Mavericks for the outright playoff spot.

James is the kind of player who ups his game when the stakes are at their highest. Playoff LeBron may be upon us after he dropped a 23-point, 14-rebound, and 12-assist triple-double in their win over the Grizzlies.