That's not rational. That's sentimental. Loyal fans are irrational just like love is irrational. Besides, how do you explain the non hometown fans? Why did people in Australia root for the Rockets when they were absolutely mediocre? Fan is fanatic. You can't put a rational reason for a fan to love a team or hate a team. In fact, the blind passion is what makes fans fans. It doesn't mean that fans can't make rational criticisms against their own team. But they still love them even though they are angry at them. Being irrational is not always a bad thing.
Then its not jordan's fault. Noone can win championship by himself plus scrubs. Management builds the team, BUT jordan could demand supporting cast, instead of walking away from bulls. What did lebron do? He chose to take his talent to south beach. Why didn't wade n bosh come to cavs instead? Why didn't lebron lobby n negotiate with owner n GM about it? He could still be the man in cavs. Why didn't cavs management spare enough caps for the 3 of them? Fail. N Fail.
Pippen wasn't terrible Pippen led the Bulls to 55 wins the year Jordan was out. Lebron never played with a player of Pippens caliber in Cleveland. I think it says alot the year Jordan was out his team still won 50+ games and probably should have gone to the finals if not for bogus refereeing On the other hand, Lebron leaves and the Cavs go straight into the toilet and has had the top lottery pick 3 times since then That says alot
He did lobby a few times for certain players. When Amare was still pretty good and was in trade rumors, he lobbied for the cavs to get him but management liked JJ Hickson better.
I wouldn't say playing there for 8 years and getting them to conference finals and finals single handedly was just walking away. They knew he wanted to win and brought nothing to the team to help.
I completely agree. If anything, guys like Mario Elie and Byron Russell would never be able to check this guy. A physical player like Anthony Mason couldn't hope to keep up with him either. For goodness sake, Glen Rice played back then and did quite well. Needless to say, the guy wasn't exactly intimidation personified. Furthermore, what's ironic is that when they were a super team, in year one, they didn't win in the finals. Wade and Bosh are very good role players at this point. Wade clearly isn't the same player anymore. If he gives them production in the low 20s, they're fortunate. As far as Bosh, this is the guy said that he wasn't built for the post. Granted, I like his game, but he wouldn't see this kind of success if Lebron wasn't there, whereas Lebron would still have the same kind of success in most places with a competent or even semi-competent front office. James has no one anything like Pippen, a 6'8 forward who largely defined what a small forward could be, especially defensively. Say what you want about Worthy, but his game wasn't half as good as Pippen's defensively. Finally, the best decision Lebron ever made was leaving Cleveland. Just watch Zombieland for evidence .
You're right, management builds the team so why is Lebron being criticized for not staying in Cleveland? His mandate was pretty simple, I'm going to the team that gives me a best shot at a ring. Seriously, you want Lebron to stay in Cleveland and waste more years of his prime? LBJ can demand all he wants but Cleveland had shown ineptitude time and time again, and even when he left they still made horrible moves like reaching for draft picks again and again. If he had stayed in Cleveland there will still be people calling him a choker and putting him below guys like Kobe, because while it seems every LBJ hater criticizes him for leaving Cleveland these were the same people who were making fun of him for not having any rings. I'm glad that he went to Miami and shut all the doubters up. Now he just needs to continue his momentum and maybe 10 years from now he'll be the GOAT.
Good points. While Lebron sometimes says selfish things, he says it only to defend himself against all the haters. It's a defense mechanism and I don't blame him. He was scrutinized since HS and this is his way of dealing with it. People just don't like to give him props he deserves because of his arrogant attitude at times (mostly as a defensive mechanism), and the way he handled the decision.
So would MJ let Kawhi Leonard slow him down & outperform him in the same night? Isn't he supposed to be the most unstoppable player in the NBA ever? The guys on Mount Rushmore are rolling over in their graves
That season is overblown to try and knock Jordan down when it really should be used to build Phil Jackson up. The Bulls still had the majority of the team that 3peated and everyone was already running Phils game plan to perfection. Pip was never going to play better than he did that season, but he did an amazing job. Were they a good team without Jordan and just Pip and Phil at the helm? Of course, but Jordan proved that once he returned to form, they became the greatest team ever. 55 wins and 47 wins and then BAM! 72 wins. 69 wins. 62 wins. Another 3peat. It's pretty easy to say if they decided to re-up everyone's contract for just 1 more season in a short lock out, they would have won a 4th and final one. With all that said, the point is if you remove James and replace him with a young Toni Kukoc caliber type player and some serviceable big men like Luc Longely and the Heat are still a 50+ win team. Probably still capable of getting to the Finals in that weak east. I'd take prime Wade over prime Pippen any day. Sure, he's got some injuries piling up now, but he plays a different role now than he did and people see that as if hes suddenly some regular role player(same with Bosh) and not a complete all around stud still. He would return to 25,5,5 numbers without Lebron and Bosh would probably be a 22,8 guy. Wade is 32 and people act like hes 38. The true champions learn how to adapt and overcome as their physical talent becomes less of a gap from other players than it was in their primes. (Here's looking at you T-Mac, Iverson, Francis, etc) Never underestimate the TEAM and COACH that know and experienced how to be champions. It wasn't just MJ or Lebron that learned how to win. The team did.
