You are accounting for Miami's injuries, but not Cleveland? Come on it's hard to see your arguments as objective when THREE of Cleveland's starters didn't play last season. Varejao was injured for most of the season. And you don't think that Cleveland's chemistry would be affected? Come on, if you really do hate the guy you should easily be picking up stuff like these.
Great article about ESPN's ranking of LeBron #1. http://www.foxsportsflorida.com/10/.../landing_heat.html?blockID=584702&feedID=3565
Varejao was injured. PF was the teams most stacked position. Losing 40 wins is still pretty remarkable. I love how random journalists who don't follow purely basketball for a living take a Magic Johnson joke outta context and run with it. Actually watching basketball seems to be the worst way of evaluating a player. The only thing that matters is the the storyline
Bingo! What it comes down to is who do you want to have the ball when it's game seven, finals, tied, with seven seconds on the clock. And no one would choose LeChoke for that last possession, not if they could choose any star in the league.
1. LeBron James at No. 1: Too high, too low or just right? Henry Abbott, ESPN.com: Just right. It's a loaded, emotional issue, but if there are any objective people left -- Daryl Morey, for instance -- they'll tell you. You don't trust your own GM?
People never talk about this. Not only where they without Lebron but that also lost their best defender and hustler. That hurt them alot. I think they could have gotten another 10-15 games if they had him. Still not a great record but would have looked much better.
Just because you win the championship doesn't mean you're the best player in the NBA. Same as the MVP winner. He's great; top five. But he's not #1 just because he won the MVP award.
I read Magic's comments regarding James. Ive read similar comments equating how good a player is by how many rings he has. I dont buy it. Imo, how good a player is has little to do with how many championships he has won. Now, if you want to make a case for leadership qualities, then that has more bearing. I ask myself, was Hakeem a better player in 94-1995 than he was in 90 or 91? No. His team was better. There are players that get high marks in leadership that were not great players as much as there are great players that were not great leaders. Now I am expecting someone to say: "But great players make their fellow players better". True. But this aspect of gauging a players greatness cannot be counted by rings alone for many teams just dont have the talent for a ring regardless of how much leadership is exhibited by their star player. So to say Kobe is way better than Lebron given his ring count is 5-0 is meaningless to me.
The only reason LerBon haven't won a championship is because he has teammates... and that slows him down. If he only played by himself on the court, 1-on-5, he'd have 10 championships by now. At least.
On 1st and 10, Skip and Stephen A. Smith gave their top 5 list. Skip's list. 1.Wade 2.Durant 3.Kobe 4.Dirk 5.Carmelo Stephen's list. 1.Wade 2.Kobe 3.Dwight 4.Dirk 5.Durant
i actually read what i knew was a stupid article just to make sure he'd actually make a ridiculous list of people ahead of lebron. i love the newfound love for wade everyone has (apparently skip and stephen a, also). he seemed to not get near the respect he deserved until he became lebron's teammate and people needed an outlet to show their dislike for lebron by throwing praise dwade's way. becoming lebron's teammate has done wonders for his reputation. kobe? so he was worse in the regular season, his team won fewer games, then he got swept out of the playoffs by the same team that beat lebron's, and kobe did poorly in both rounds of the playoffs. he sure stepped up when it mattered. dwight? i'm pretty sure he didn't do much offensively the only time he was in the finals. and i'm pretty sure he lost in the 1st round last year. and while i knew the list would be ridiculous, i didn't know he'd actually give the gift of listing rose. lebron practically did everything but steal rose's lunch money in the conference finals last year. if lebron sucked in the finals, what does that say about the guy he absolutely dominated in the conference finals? just shutting him down when guarding him, stopping all of his last second shots, blocking his last desperation attempt to prolong the series while hitting all of the big shots on the other end. let's face it, unless you are dirk, you pretty much have nothing to say to lebron about the 2011 season. and of course, people (incorrectly) thought dirk was a choking softy up until the playoffs last year for all the times he got sent home early.
Who cares what Skip Bayless thinks? Anyone who’d put Melo in the top 5 is a huge troll whose opinions don’t merit discussion.
Durant is overrated. He got shot own so many times in the playoffs and even when he was out they still won, if I recall.
It is all in your head. I'm pretty sure Lebron wanted to win. It just didn't translate in your "does". It's also in the "matches" word that got you confused.
Lebron is really great player. And all those statistics, oh man, he's godlike. But, I got one for ya. Doing things right != doing things right. We'll never know the answer if Dirk on Heat would translate into championship and if Lebron on Mavs wouldn't. That's why we shouldn't speculate, but rather base on facts.
