It's not even about loyalty. It's about taking the easy way out. Anyone who have played pick up game know how much we despise the guys who always put the best players on the same team to beat up on less talented players. This is the same reason why people hate bullies who always pick on smaller guys and run away whenever there's a bigger boy.
wade maybe, but kobe last made the playoffs at age 33 and basically still in his prime. and it says as starters, so that wouldn't include the first 2 years when he was just out of high school.
It's the same rationale man, different teams mean different cores. Sure Lebron formed a super team but the teams he beat were super teams as well, Celtics Big 3, Lakers big 2 who actually beat Celtics big 3 two times, and of course GSW with 3 all stars including 2 of the best shooters in NBA history. In Lebron's super teams he always pulled his weight in the end it's a far cry from latching onto a super team and beating the rest of the league on EZ mode like what KD has done. You can argue TD way is still better and it is, but not every superstar plays for the San Antonio Spurs or has a GM like Krause. When your team and GM sucks are you supposed to stay and be trash your entire career? Look at how marginalized Damian Lilliard has become. Grading greatness of players should be based on their individual brilliance its not their fault they got stuck with a sad sack team lol. Hakeem and Dirk prob the only ones in recent memory who dragged a horrible team to the championship but nobody calls them GOATs so I think that's an unfair criticism. Almost everybody needs help to win even the best players in league history. To my knowledge this Miami team is the weakest and only cakewalk team Lebron has faced in the Finals in every other matchup he needed to play GOAT level to have a championship. If you still needed to play GOAT level to win a ring who cares whether you had a power team or not? As for Lebron not winning in Cleveland and leaving, MJ also didn't win **** until he got PJ, Pippen, Rodman and the rest of the Jordanners. Why is there a difference between sticking with one team until it got better and then leaving your team to make a good team? LOL I don't understand the difference you still end up with a power team in the end. At least with Lebron the other teams he faced were also championship caliber power teams. MJ never faced a real powerhouse team in its prime but that didn't prevented him from being the GOAT. In fact the spin is MJ was just so dominant he made the rest of his peers look like trash, but when Lebron does the same thing its like he is cheating lol.
Wade was proven, Bosh wasn't. He was pretty similar to Klove put up amazing stats but his teams went nowhere. And that was in the weak ass East as wel...
MJ literally retired 3 times, you gotta stop drinking so much kool aid you confuse reality with Space Jam. Here is Kobe confirming he wanted a trade to Chicago Bulls when the Lakers sucked AFTER he ran Shaq out of town: https://www.latimes.com/sports/lake...-trade-2007-chicago-bulls-20150223-story.html Wanna bet Lebron wouldn't have left if the Cavs traded Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol? Or gave him Pippen and Rodman instead of Anderson Varejao and Darius Miles?
MJ won 6 rings but that's with a super strong supporting cast that is good enough to reach ECF without him. He also had the 2nd best wing player of his era as his sidekick and one of the GOAT coaches for all of his run how is that better than making a new power team multiple times? They already got the formula down pat the first time they just running it back it ain't hard when your team is so much more dominant than everyone else and you got two of the top 5 players in the league on your team. This is like saying Kobe had such a tough road for his first 3 peat cuz he won it with the same powerhouse team year after year LOL that's literally backwards logic. When you have a new team you always get a tougher challenge, it's always a risk you can work out or it may not. OTH if you already have the championship together and ride it out every year how is that supposed to be harder than starting from scratch multiple times?
If you don't see how leaving a team whenever it starts getting worse and going to a better team is taking the easy way out, then I don't know what else I can say. To be fair, LeBron is not the only guy who does that. Today's NBA is full of star players looking to form their own power teams to beat on others. I am not one of those nostalgic people who believe in the "good old days." But I really don't like this trend. And LeBron's Decision pretty much popularized this whole culture.
See my reply to Icehouse. Too bad LeBron couldn't keep his cores. Yes, going to a new team takes time to establish. LeBron didn't win the first year he joined a new team, not in Miami, not in Cleveland, and not in LA. To his credit, his longevity gives him enough time for that. When you have enough talent (like having two of top 5 players or 3 of top 10 players), you can be a good team in a short time. Look, no one is saying that LeBron is a scrub. He is rightfully on the GOAT conversation or else we wouldn't have this kind of threads. He might be arguably better than MJ. I don't even want to dispute that. I am just saying that the LeBron camp uses his bailing on sinking ships as a positive spin.
I bolded the flaw in your logic. Irving and Love had accomplished nothing prior to teaming with Lebron. At the time, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that they'd be a better supporting cast than Wade/Bosh. You're describing Kevin Durant, not Lebron James.
I can't see it, because that's called free agency. You don't have an issue with great players playing with other great players. You have an issue with the players having some say in where that happens at. If it's not a problem for Kareem and Magic to play together simply because nether decided to do it in free agency (although both forced their way to LA, but that's a story for another day) then it's really not a problem for anyone to play together. All these guys playing on talented teams should tell their GM's to get rid of some talent so they can do it the hard way.
A free agent utilizing his free agency is not bailing. If you don't want the free agent to leave, build the type of team that will make him want to stay. Teams get a nearly half a decade jump start when players are drafted and have no say in where they play. You seem to have an issue with players deciding where to play, which is something they fought for for decades. Him taking his fate into his own hands IS a positive story for player empowerment. What, you think it's better and smarter to stick around in a worse situation? Is that what you do at your job? I have no idea why athletics is the only field where we expect grown men to make irrational decisions, such as deciding to make their job harder.
Sports is of course different from any other jobs. The spirit of sports is meeting and overcoming the challenges. Avoiding challenges has always been looked down on in sports. Do you not agree? Meeting the challenge is not the same as intentionally making your job harder. I have no problem with players playing with other great players if the team was built by smart management. But this is not the players' job. Their job is to play the best they can to help the team win. I have problem with players intentionally forming super teams (or joining one) so that they can win more easily. That is against the spirit of sports.
I admit that the Cavs were not better than the Heat at the time. I understand that Cleveland had a special meaning to LeBron or he probably would not have gone back there. But the fact that he would not play for Cleveland until they had the talent for him to win shows my point. And he left again when the talent level dropped also indicates the same kind of attitude he has all along.
So using the bolded logic, shouldn't a player that has the good fortune of winding up on a talented team try to overcome the challenge of winning with great support? Magic was drafted to LA with Kareem. Won instantly. Shouldn't he have tried to get off of LA? Where is the challenge, going to a team with the games best player and winning with him immediately? I guess he wasn't challenged until Kareem retired in 88? IF overcoming a challenge is your issue then you should also expect those players to do that. Instead, you are ok with players playing with great talent if they have the fortune of having it. Oh, so players should leave their careers in the hands of others as opposed to them fighting for decades to have some say themselves. That's smart.... As I stated earlier, your real issue us players having a say. You don't mind if someone else is in control of their good situation, but do mind if they have a say in it.
What point? That he didn't want to play for a team that had no realistic shot at contending? So you're criticizing him for wanting what every star wants? I get that you don't like Lebron, but your criticisms really don't make any sense.
You obviously cannot differentiate meeting the challenge from intentionally making your life worse. While most people would admire those who work their way up from tough upbringing than those who were born with a silver spoon. But nobody would say that rich kids should just intentionally move to the ghetto. The "control" of the players is to make their team better, not to find a better team. Let's end this convo. Agree to disagree. It has gone to the subjective territory of what kind of hero we would root for.
