It was a precursor and an easier option for the rest of the stars to follow suit. Before the "decision" it was uncouth and unheard of to join other All Star players via free agency. Stars have played with stars before but those pairings usually came via trades. The NBA we are in now is ridiculous and broken, all thanks to scared, spineless cowards starting with lebron. Thank goodness we had/have the Astros.
No the league messed up the salary cap back in 2016. They basically don't care about the fan experience because they are making money hand over fist.
Lebron may have opened the gates , but he did in free agency what other players had already done by forcing a trade . The Boston big 3 was close , the difference was the players were just a little bit older . Durant took things to a whole new level . So much so I don't even think it can be compared to lebron's move . Lebron had no idea of how the heat would work . He brought in bosh and the heat had a **** record the year before ... there was a real question about how things would click and how the heat could fill out the roster . KD went to a historically strong team that was still intact and young . Furthermore he lost to that team the preceding playoffs . Furthermore that team still had a very solid bench . Furthermore there were already 3 all stars on the team who had a history of playing well with each other . His b****assness is on a whole different level . His smugness about it and GS arrogance were on a whole different level .
gonna be honest, i doubt the league wanted or expected this. do they really want it to be a 1 team league? the all star starting 5 is literally the warriors starting 5 minus harden with draymond coming off the bench. i can see everyone voting for the warriors starting 5 just for lolz just to get them all starting. this is a joke
KD was a straight up b**** move but if Lebron, being the top player in the league, had never opted to sign with Wade and Bosh in Miami, this whole ordeal of Super-Super teams probably fails to exist. The burden of "needing help" was taken to a whole new stratosphere because of lebitch.
I hate the Mavs but I will always respect Dirk. LeBron, Wade, and Bosh joined forces and Dirk STILL beat them.
Of course they didnt want this but they weren't willing to make the hard decisions back in 2016 and hoped they could get away with it.
I think the key difference is lebron really did need help . Granted , he could have gone somewhere else than Miami , but even then they had competitive series and didn't win it the first year . KD had another top 10-15 player on his roster . Clevelands roster outside of lebron was a huge joke . Lebron had singlehanded carried them as far as possible and he wanted to win ... he needed to win . The pressure on KD to perform pre GS was nowhere near the pressure on lebron to win pre Miami . Because lebron is lebron .... I remember him being vilified more than KD even though KD is by all objective measures a way bigger b****. I agree that lebron opened the door . But KD is a big enough p***y that he might have done it anyways . I think KD may have gotten raped at some point in his life . It's the only reason I can think of he is such a p***y .
I agree about him needing help, I also get that it was a brand new team and the fact that they struggled early on, doesnt discount him being the TOP dog in the league, tucking his tail to be with an alpha in Wade. KD is the ultimate beta, but to say there was more pressure on KD than there ever was for the NBAs prodigal son is going overboard. Lebron was always gonna be graded by chips and KD was always gonna be a great player that ran during the era of Lebron and fell short. Thats it. Only because he was the best player in the league though, but I agree whole heartedly about kd. I really dont. He didnt/doesnt have enough balls to pioneer something that extravagant and know what kind of scrutiny he wouldve had to deal with being the first. LOL, russel triple doubled on his chin from time to time in the showers.
This. 100%. Over and over. The only people who care about parity are die hard loyal fans. And to the NBA it doesnt matter because die hard fans will continue to buy merchandise. Players win. Teams win. NBA wins. Fans lose. Fans need to stop feeding this beast. Quit going to games. Quit buying merchandise. Switch to watching pirate streams.
We can agree to disagree. I do agree with many of your points . I think objectively , the media made a much bigger deal about lebron's move than it actually was in retrospect. I think even in 10-15 years nothing will be able to top KD's move
I think the Durant move was much worse. Durant's move was a straight b**** move. Not only did that Heat squad go .500 in the Finals, they got crushed in the last one in '14. As for Durant's Warriors, outside the Rockets series, in 2 years they went no more than 5 games in any of their series.
Everyone wants to kiss each other's ass. Rivalries are dead. Competition & competing is dead. Let's all join hands and get together...
See not entirely. Lebron made a project and didn’t join one. The league was still competitive. This snake is who took it a step further.
Lebron and CP3 ruined the NBA, but not for the reason you think. They were instrumental in rejecting cap smoothing. The stupid cap spike has caused everything. It let Durant go to the Warriors and the fallout from that Summer is why nobody can get paid this year.