@ OP: Everyone on Earth knows how incredibly good LerBon is. He can be a walking triple double at will, basically. And taking a Cavs team full of YMCA players and a sideshow flopper to the finals was nothing short of a miracle in itself. There is no denying his God given talents. But the reason why we all hate him is due to his demeanor, his ass-hattery, and just the way he goes about things in general. Plus ESPN creating the church of LerBon before he even graduated High School was annoying, which I think sparked all the eventual hate that climaxed with The Decision (-to make an ass of himself). Also it doesn't help that LerBon acts like he is absolutely oblivious as to why fans dislike him so much. Yes, he apologized for The Decision, but I'm not so sure he did it out of his own conviction. Now maybe after he wins 3-4 rings, he might change a little bit and be more humble. But you never know. That is all, just wanted to get that out of my chest.
To be clear, I'm not entirely convinced the Lakers clearly have more talent, just that an argument can be made either way, in other words... the matter is subjective. However if Haslem and Miller were healthy and played most of the season, I would definitely argue that the Heat was the more talented team. Regarding the way I listed the players, it was because it was seemingly the most obvious and simple method. The positions of the players listed are clearly defined, easily recognized and are important to distinguished. For instance, while many players would be listed as better players than Bynum or Odom, there arent many that does so at their respective positions and role on the court. For instance, theres probably 20 players or more in front of Bynum, but in forming a team, there is but a few centers & PF who can play center, more valuable than Bynum. Sure, Paul Pierce, Deron Williams, Westbrook, Joe Johnson, Aldridge, Griffin or Ginobli might be rated better players in the abstract, but none of them can be selected to fill the center spot better than Bynum as their are only two or three in the entire league better suited for that job. Secondly the question of where each player would rank in a top 5, 15 or 30 list is not only very difficult and subjective to make, but also not all that informative to the actual realities of the court. Such a list would be dominated by, PG's, PF's, and severely diminish the value of good C's and 6th men. Sure some players PF's can play C such as Horford, Gasol & Duncan or SF can play SG, Lebron & Pierce, but these are the few exceptions, rather than the rule. Lastly making a top 10-20 list of best player in the NBA, would give me a headache lol. I really wouldn't know where to begin as each players value/rating is so dependent on his role, team, environment and the scarcity or difficulty in replacing/duplicating that players production. Personally I have Wade as a top 7 player (5-7) and Gasol as a top 10 player last season. Gasol has his faults, but there arent many 7ftooters in the nba who can adequately defend/rebound, score and pass AND be able to play well, the Center and PF position.
I'm of the opinion that the NBA is a superstar league and the Lakers have 1 superstar that is past his prime and can't play at the highest level for sustained minutes like he use to be able to while the Heat have two that still can. If Kobe and Artest were 27 I would agree that the Lakers have more talent. There is a reason every time a superstar player wants off his team the team usually tries very hard to keep them around. Superstars make up for depth and good players every time. I think they are the most talented team in the league right now. The only thing that kept them from dominating the regular season was chemistry. From a strictly talent aspect I think their big three have just as much and probably more than the 80s Celtics big three did. When you put that into a league with 6 more teams and talent further spread out it makes that amount of concentrated talent even more deadly. You can call the leagues expansion a bogus reason all you want but even Lebron recognizes what it has done to the NBA and mentioned that there should probably be contraction so there can be more stacked teams like there were in the 80s. Lebron is fully aware that a juggernaut team in today's game is a lot different than it was back then.
Solid post. I could come up with some stretch arguments but I won't even waste the time because I feel overall we are pretty much on the same page minus where we rank some players.
It's a superstar league but you still need depth and good role players. It's the exact reason everyone thought Miami would not win this season. Kobe is past his prime but still a top player that finished in the top of MVP voting. LA lost because Gasol had a sudden dip in his play. If he were as efficient as he was in the past 3 years then they are probably still playing. Ok, well I and some other's don't.
It's a stretch to say everyone. Analysts like Hollinger and Van Gundy had them winning 66-73 games. I don't remember who they picked to win it all but I know for sure Broussard picked Miami to win the championship. And I think that's a reasonable opinion.
