LeBron shoot himself in the foot. He has no one to blame, but himself in the Lakers' debacle. AD was a good trade, but did he not know he was injury prone. He should've just let the team develop their young players, and they mix in veterans who aren't dreadfully old and past their prime. If he had a GM, like Morey, he would've been on a team that was deadly efficient to his skill set, yet be competitive without him. I felt the cost of Ingram and Ball with picks was a little high for AD. The Lakers might not have won a title, 2 years ago, but they would've and were competitive. He's not bad as MJ and Kobe, but he is damn near it. They shouldn't have any say about picking teammates or putting together a team. LeBron, ironically is going to suffer the same fate as MJ in Washington, fielding an older team that he cannot carry for 82 games, anymore. Let, the young guys learn, especially if they're good.
It's relative, can't say it's better, no worse. In that time period, teams had guys who were enforcers, like in hockey, and would make harder fouls. But, there's more to defense than fouling people hard. Hitting people doesn't necessarily make you a great defender. It can help, but doesn't necessarily make you a better defensive player. Even, from that era, the type of fouls they committed is sometimes over estimated. Great defense is born out of strategy, fundamentals, coaching, training, and understanding offense. Alot of it is born out of rule changes. Which is why switching is probably the most imperative aspect to defense, now, because alot of teams concentrate on ball movement and 3 point shooting. Tighter defense - is a nebulous quote. Because, tighter in what regards. On a single ball-handler or in the post. Or is the entire offense and blocking lanes. If defense was a bad as people made it out to be, I can think of several players who should've had better careers, because they were outstanding on offense with below average defense. You literally cannot keep a player on the floor now, if they cannot switch or defend a little. https://www.miamitimesonline.com/li...cle_1bf08f1c-dcbb-11ea-ba5c-6f0a3215cd6c.html I've watched games from nearly every era, and the difference between now and the 90s and 2000s, is the pace of the game is more lighting face, like the 80s and 60s. The pace is insane. Though, I will say it's much tougher to play defense, now. Mainly because teams have to cover every spot from the perimeter and rotate. Even your centers and power forward, have to rotate onto guards, every other play now and legitimately guard them. That was not the case, for most of NBA history. Teams are finding their shots alot quicker, but with more efficiency, especially from 3 point range. If teams are attempting, 6 to 20 more 3 pointers a game than other eras. Yes, they are naturally going to score more points. Another thing is the number of shots, especially from 3 point range that are ... contested. I will shut up, if you can find me a season beyond the last 20 years, where defenders were continuously contesting 3 pointers, like they have to now. Also, ball movement is crazy, now. Even, bad teams, in their current makeup might fare well under certain conditions in previous eras, be somewhat threatening team.
Tighter in all aspects. There was a lot more physicality in the perimeter and also in the post. I'm not just talking about hard hits. Some contact was allowed that wouldn't be permitted today. With the influence of European style basketball in the late 90s/early 00s, there was a lot more spacing and ball movement. I agree that it's a lot tougher to play defense because the rules are designed to generate more points and also protect the offensive player. I think that makes it more likely that players will conserve energy on defense because they don't want to be "embarrassed," but also because they're saving energy for offense. I saw it a lot beginning with the D'Antoni Suns to today.
I agree with alot of this, but it's not that cut dry. I specifically said "contested shots" or hand is on the player, just pull some random games out from 1985/87 and compare to random games now. To insist that teams are not trying on defense is a bit deceptive, and disrespectful to the teams who are actually pretty good defense. You cannot tell me Phoenix, Dallas, GS, Miami, Boston, and Philly are not good defensive teams. As you say, your own words, offense has more in their favor, now, but these teams are still pretty good defensively. Remember, the rules are made against them. The Suns are one great example, but the team that most identifies as team, today would is..the 2000s Kings. With Webber, Divac, Stojakovic, Jackson, Türkoğlu, and Bibby or White Chocolate. Every player on the floor is a good passer to an elite level passer, as much as everyone on the floor can shoot from distance or mid-range. Their coach, was Rick Adelman, who was disciple of "motion offense." Ball movement and timing. Most teams, even then, had hard timing stopping an offense, like that, because you can't really key in one player, like alot of the teams from that era (90s/2000s). Teams were not equipped to stop those pick "N"rolls, while also guarding the 3 point line. Teams could still handcheck and play a little more physical, but it's a style that is very difficulty stop. Take mash and grind team, like the Knicks of the 90s, they'd be overwhelmed by any team, like that because alot of their defense is concentrated in the paint. Houston figured this out in the 94 Finals, adding in Olajuwon who they couldn't stop, it broke them open a little bit, because they weren't used to that kind of ball movement and team that could shoot them at out of the game with 3 pointers. If you go back and watch 2014 NBA Finals, that's also good precursory to how teams play today. Along with the modern Warriors.
Look if somebody told you the people in Euroleague are just as good as the NBA cuz NBA players are soft whereas Euroleague is more physical and everyone is more skilled what would you say? Does that make any sense? Thats the same argument you are making if all it takes is to be physical to be better than the players in the NBA the top players in the Olympics wouldnt be NBa players. Again, training,technology and globalization has made 2022 players better than 1980s and below players overall. Thats just a fact. The 1980 dream team were beating people up by 50 pts in the Olympics. You see that happening now? Its cuz bball has become globalized. The transcendant stars of the eras like Hakeem, MJ, Magic, Kareem etc these players will be good in any era but their peers or the guys they beat up on a daily basis are scrubs today. Its not like MJ faced a HOF opponent every match he has, most of the time he faced the average 80s player who is a scrub compared to the average 2022 player. Multiply that over the years and you have inflated stats of MJ compared to Lebron. It's like if you cloned Cade Cunningham and then put 1 Cade in highschool and 1 Cade in college. Both are the same player but Cade in high school will put up bigger stats due to the weaker comp. There are lots of future NBA stars in high school who are better than colloge Your definition of "modern era" is 1970 or 50 yrs ago? Lol. Advanced computers and internet didnt exist 50 yrs ago. The game is played lot different now than 50 yrs ago. We now have positionless bball, analytics and people shooting from the logo. Dunks are like ho hum crap unless somebody is getting posterized. 6'9 wings arent uncommon. These sre the type of stuff MJ didnt experience while he was playing.
If he would have joined Harden and CP3 in Houston (obviously keeping CP3 there and not trading for Westbrook lol) then he probably would have an extra ring by now and closer to MJ.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...l-jabbar-criticizes-some-lebron-james-actions I think Kareem is a bit of a bitterman...but I think he's spot on with the analysis of Lebron. To me...it's MJ, Kobe then everyone else. Those two were never as polarizing as LBJ has been.
I agree. And not only is Kareem bitter, but everything LeBron's media team is saying about him is true. Attacking Kareem has to be the strategy, though, because defending LeBron against some of the things he's done on and off the court is tough.
I understand people like to defend what is near and dear to them, but some of the arguments for nostalgia make absolutely no sense. I could understand people fighting for John Stockton and Reggie Miller. But, when I see stuff, like "Craig Hodges would've been borderline a all-star in today's game." Argue that Luka, Harden, Giannis, and Trae would be fairly average or coming off the bench. Is complete hogwash, and they know it. A specialist, backup player from the 90s would be on par with or a better player than LaMelo, Beal, Bridges, Paul George, AD, Gilgeous-Alexander, or Dejounte Murray. Jaylen Brown.
Nothing Lebron has done is worse than what MJ has ever done you realize that right? Lebron's only crime is he is arrogant and has a large ego. MJ is a bully and assaulted his teammates including throwin balls at teammstes who played bad and denying them food as well as shaming them after games. In contrast ehat did Lebron do? Call himself the Chosen One? Pretend he is the GM? Mimick Sam Cassell's celebrations? Compare the two it aint no contest. Lebron hasnt done anything morally wrong off and on court. He is a model NBA player thats why he has been the face of the league for 19 yrs. MJ is lucky he didnt play in the age of social media cuz some his **** would get him banned or have his sponsorships nixxed like his insane gambling activities or those incidents of assault. He even admitted he was racist as a teen lol.
We are talking basketball and stick to basketball...... we are not talking about who is squeaky clean. Will Smith crafted this clean image that he demolished with one slap.......it is just an image. MJ let everyone know who he was ..... he is honest to his character, does not need to act.
Maybe, maybe no, how do you know? Unless Jordan's gambling led to him being forced to retire for 18 months, nothing that he did made him a less successful basketball player. We could actually say that him doing what he did, no matter how bad it was, helped him and the Bulls. I don't think that's the case for LeBron. From what I know, Kareem thought the Sam Cassell celebration was beneath him. I think that's who LeBron is. Kareem also disagreed with LeBron's tweet with the Covid and Flu Spider-Mans pointing at each other. Not going to talk about the Covid vaccine, but maybe LeBron could have had a larger impact coming out in support of the vaccine instead of his usual passive-aggressiveness against it. I think Kareem had other things in mind, but he didn't go into specifics that I know of so I'll just go with things he's been public about. Both of those actions received some critism and some support in the moment. Kareem happens to think that those things are a bad look for LeBron. What do you think of those actions?
I've given up on these arguments, especially with older heads ... esp. those fans from the 80s and 90s. Group of fans were talking about Jokic's greatness and rare quality in the league, a few comments were very critical of him, saying in that era he would've been a much lesser talent. One said that he would've been worse than Toni Kukoc, Rik Smits, and ... Luc Longley. I was speechless at the ignorance, all pretty decent players, but you can watch five or ten minutes of game footage. None of them compare to Jokic. Jokic has a rare court vision for even point guards, he's also very high efficiency player. The nostalgia fans are so convinced that he would not be as highly regarded in other eras, is great ignorance. He does so many things that people in those eras wouldn't be ready for ... a huge guy...center who plays from the wing, rotates, and one touch, one passes ball, sometimes with no looks and runs the offense from anywhere on the floor.
