Is it wrong if i believe LeBron James is no longer the best player in the NBA anymore?

Take a break from this conversation. You really need it. Trust me on this.

 

Lol at the LeBron haters coming out in full force.
Get over it people. LeBron and KD are always going to be 1 and 2 if they are healthy. If Harden stepped up his game in the playoffs then we'd be talking about 1, 2, 3. But as of yet its LeBron KD and everyone else.

 

Dude. Just keep on trashing other peoples opinions about your judgement. Makes me no difference. Everyone in this conversation believes you are an idiot. Keep it up. Makes me no never mind.

 

Full force? Maybe I just have all these "haters" on ignore, but it seems to me that the overwhelming majority in this thread think the OP is a fool.

And to the OP, you keep asking people to prove why LeBron is better. Since LeBron being the best is the majority opinion, it's up to you to convince everyone else that he's not.

 

OP, consider this:

The Cavs stick Lebron on the other team's best player late in the game when they need a stop. Maybe he doesn't stop them every single time... but I'll put my money on Lebron to win that battle in the long run.

Now consider Harden... the Rockets look for a player they can stick Harden on who will be the easiest to defend so that we can cover up his defensive deficiencies. That's just the way it is.

How can you be the best player in the league AND a below-average defender?

 

Lebron and Durant are 1a 1b right now. OP seems to forget the cavs record with out him. It was like 1-8 or something they was winning squat.

As soon as lebron went out of GM Mode and back to player mode the cavs went on a 21-3 or something run. Lebron easily has the strongest will in the nba.

Trade lebron to any team in the league even the sixers and there playoff bound.

 

When you realize LeBron has a roster that was one of the worst in the league a year ago in the conference finals, this thread gets dumber.

 

Valiant effort their OP, and I love Harden, but I don't think he is there on both sides of the court yet, the upside is that he is only 25 though. LeBron is 30, so maybe in a few more years we'll see how harden is doing and can compare, but... LeBron right now is still doing pretty damn well without having Love, and while Harden did it in the regular season this year, LJ has done it pretty convincingly on both sides of the court to a decent Bulls team and ATL in the playoffs so far. Don't get me wrong Harden has done amazing, and I don't even like LJ, but I don't think you can have him passing him just yet. The other aspect I don't always like on Harden is if he's not getting the calls it can hurt his performance sometimes where LJ doesn't always need that.

As far as the trade conversation, if I knew we had a window to win now I'd say the James for Harden would be a trade you have to do immediately, however if planing on making a window in a few years then I'd go with Harden mainly because of the age and lebron having a lot of minutes logged.

 

If we had LeBron on our team and Harden on the Cavs i see us going further into the playoffs than Harden will on the Cavs.

 

Based on OP's question, no there is nothing wrong with believing that LeBron is no longer the best player in the NBA. My personal take is that it's not an obvious clear cut choice as it used to be. Today the best player in the league is more like a choice between 1A, 1B, 1C. You can have your pick between LeBron, Harden, Durant, or even Curry in some circles. This only goes to show how the league has caught up to LeBron and how he is begining to slowly decline from the player he was only a few years ago. As last night's game showed he probably still is the top player in the league but there are other just as equally qualified choices and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

That's the problem with Harden is knowing when he's going to show up motivated, he still has lapses where he just disappears, and a lot of it seems on his motivation level. Like there's been quarters or even games where he isn't interested. He's gotten a lot better this year... I just mean it seems more of an issue in his head rather than talent. Once he finally realizes he can easily drive whenever he wants or split the defense he'd be even more dominant. I mean there's some games he's had this year where he doesn't continue to drive when he easily could, and I'd like to see him take over more big games. Hopefully he dominates this series, because I think whoever wins the West is going to win it all.

 

LeBron's production took a huge dip this year. It could be caused by his declining athleticism, since most of his game relies on the athleticism. He is 30 years old. It's pretty safe to say that LeBron's peak years are behind him.

Harden/Curry/Davis will be the next-gen superstars.

 

A lot of ppl throwing rocks at the OP...but he does have valid points. If the premise is that there is points that Lebron is no longer the best player in the league this year then he has a point. Normally there was a tier above everyone else and that belonged to LBJ or LBJ & KD. LBJ this year is no longer in that tier but with the Curry/Harden/Davis bracket. Also lets not exaggerate LBJs defense in the recent years....thats been declining. This is not a hate...this is just stating the results of this year hence he was not really in conversation of MVP this year

 

If Lebron played any position 1-4 full time, he'd be top 3 in any one of them and that's being very conservative.

There's also still no accounting for the huge gulf between them in overall defense, blocks, and rebounding. Half the game is played on defense you know. And I don't give the advantage to Harden in every offensive ability so there's that.

And while I think Harden and Curry indeed had the best performances of the year, very few doubt who the best player is. Lebron has been deep in the playoffs many times and was obviously biding his time to prepare for it. Much like the Spurs as a team has done for many seasons.

Also you keep penalizing Lebron for having better teammates. We're not talking about who has done more with less. Even if he played next to Durant, Davis, and Curry on the same team how does that change anything? Unless you think a great player should ball hog just to improve their win shares.