That just helps the argument that others are making about jump shooting being one area that players can definitely continue to improve throughout their careers. That's a point in favor of Lebron having a long career.
Seems to me you are just looking for reasons to hate on the guy. Why don't you just pray for an injury.. that's the best chance.
I'm just tired of new excuses made every day. First he didn't have enough in Cleveland. Now his bench players stink too much. I mean what else does he need? Does he need Chris Paul at point? And D. Howard at center? Would that give him enough? With Manu G and Chuck Hayes coming off the bench?
Yeah, but Kidd couldn't really get any worse. I just don't understand how a guy can be in the league coming on 20 years and never even sniff 45% FG. Does he not practice? That other post comparing him to Nash has got to be a joke, because Nash is probably the best shooter in NBA history and Kidd the worst.
He didn't have enough in Cleveland. Look at them without him. They are godawful. The fact that he took that team to the Finals once, the best record twice is amazing. Heck, even getting them to the playoffs is a big accomplishment! He has no excuse here in Miami. He has talent. They have a great record. They are a contender this year and will be for years to come. They are just going through a slump right now (like they did earlier, and like every elite team has so far this year, including the Lakers three times). The expectation was just unfairly built up that this team would win 70+ games that every little setback seems like the end of the world. Objectively speaking, this is still a great team and LeBron is still a great player. Nothing has changed.
I would say the expectations of the Heat this year is not unfair. The way they carried themselves and the fact that 3 of the top 5-10 players on 1 team should generate great results. I know this have been covered many times, the cavs lost a lot more than just LBJ (obviously he is the most important part). I really don't feel the supporting cast of the cavs was that bad. They actually had a pretty well balanced team.
Tonights game is the Super Friends vs The Legion of Doom. The question is who is who in the match up tonight ?? zzpot puff puff
LA will beat the hell out of Miami tonight. Then, Miami will beat the hell out of Memphis on Saturday.
Not so fast buddy. <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Xm_VTeQ2QMo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
bosh is more top 20 than top 10. and the thing is, lebron and wade are playing like great players. they are 1 and 3 in PER this season. it's not like the team came together and now they don't know what to do, they're playing very well. and bosh is playing close to what you would expect. it's just that 2 of their starters and all of their bench is minimum salary role players. it's funny, in the offseason the consensus seemed to be that they would only be able to sign a bunch of scrubs to minimum salaries and that they wouldn't be great and would have to wait a couple of offseasons to accumulate the depth necessary to win. and the heat seemed ok with that because the point wasn't to win this year's championship, it was to have a 5 or 6 year window and the thought was that with a solid supporting cast, no one would be able to match the heat with their top talent. but top talent plus 6 or 7 scrubs wasn't supposed to take the league by storm (hell, morey was giving them 45 wins). now they've played with a bunch of minimum salary scrubs and they're good, not great and people are so surprised. i don't know if the 21-1 stretch threw people off, but the role players are what they are. i can't even blame them when they play crappy, because they are crappy. and the big 3 seemed to recognize this and took smaller salaries to free up a little cap room. unfortunately, almost all of that cap room went to miller and haslem, who have played a combined 900 minutes this season and are 11th and 13th on the team in minutes. here are the top 7 in minutes played after the big 3: chalmers, jones, anthony, ilgauskas, arroyo, house and dampier. those guys make a combined $10.2M, or about $1M more than rondo by himself, the 4th highest paid guy on the celtics. they did lose more and that hurt. but when lebron didn't play last year, the cavs had the efficiencies of a 29 win team. when he did play, they had the efficiencies of a 65 win team. so they weren't exactly awesome without lebron last year. the injuries have probably been bigger than the other losses this year, though. big z and delonte didn't produce much last year, and while shaq produced, he hurt the team in terms of +/-. it was no coincidence they went 21-4 right after shaq got injured to end the season.
but like many said, when bron, wade, bosh teamed up like they did, they have to win. period. no excuses. it's their job to make whatever role players they have to do a better job.
73 wins may be a stretch, how about 60? If he's so good and won 65 and 62 last 2 years with scrubs, shouldn't he at least keep it up? Excuses are getting really OOOOOOld now.
Great points, and I agree totally. First off, in terms of the cavs, yes they are not good at all last year without LBJ. To me that is because they were build around him. Just like how the celtics are built around Pierce (maybe rondo now). So they would suffer a lot more when they loose PP than say allen. The cavs to me was a very well balanced team last year. Thats why I don't feel that LBJ did not have a supporting cast he needs. What I meant with top 5-10 in my initial post was at their respective positions, rather than top 5-10 players in the league. So I apologise for not clearing it up. But IMO what did you expect by signing 3 max players? The problem with the heat IMO is that they don't have a clear number 1. i.e. they don't have a clear structure or style. Right now to me is wade and LBJ taking turns, rather than having a system. I feel they need to trade either Wade or LBJ and get in a 2nd tier all star like Ray Allen type of player. Some one that plays off the ball most of the time but can create for himself if needed.
