Imagine if he took classes with dream on how to play post like a dohminont big man when he has bol. As efficient as leonard is what the hell happened to LaMarcus. Its like those aliens from space jam got him
Who cares if Leonard is overrated. If we had a team that could beat the opponent without their best player, I'd take that team.
Excellent post. I just wanted to add however that the talent pool for basketball has risen tremendously. Larger pool of talent to select players from will increase competition level regardless of era. Everything you said was solid.
Pretty sure Game 6 skewed the whole thing. But like I said earlier, I'd take a team that could win without their best player over a team that totally depended on one single player.
Here are the list of those 9 games. It puts things into perspective. As you can see, lots of undermanned or scrub teams. HOU (Game 6) DAL GS (backups) SAC MEM (loss) TOR (no Derozan) BKN POR PHX
Kawhi is a good player but Popovich is also the best coach in the world, he is a genius at putting his players in the best positions to succeed. Lebron is playing on a team with 0 coaching, they have the most iso plays for a reason. Of course its also Lebrons fault Cavs are like that since he got his coach fired and replaced him with a lackey, but still if they had a real coach like Pops and Lebron was willing to follow the game plan he would post much better numbers than Kawhi.
Excellent post. I agree training and tech are mostly the reasons why the players of today are freaks compared to before. There's also better nutrition and higher standards of livong as well as the globalization of the NBA.
Have you watched the Spurs and Cavs play? The Spurs run full ISO Ball for Kawhi. The Cavs have abusrdly good shooters and spacing for Lebron. If anything, Lebron is in a better position to succeed than Kawhi.
Just because it is ISO doesn't mean they didn't put thought into it wtf. It's not like they give the ball to Kawhi at mid court and tell him to do something most of the time when Kawhi is given the ball his teammates are already in place to do something. It's the equivalent of Harden going 1 on 1 when everybody is at the 3 pt line, sure it is an ISO play but it is done with the intent to make it as easy as possible. Lebron is all about talent plays, they do have spacing but since Lebron has to think of everything by himself it's harder not just for him but for his teammates too. They don't have defined roles like in SAS, everything is free style that's why you have players with so many overlapping roles like Lebron, Tristan Thompson and Love all play the PF spot. Kawhi had recorded 33.4 mpg this year as a 25 yr old and that includes rest days and sitting out on blow out games (either way). Lebron when he was 25 yrs old was being worked like a dog no rest days, 39 mpg, and the focal point both offensively and defensively. To say that Lebron is in a better position than Kawhi is absurd, Kawhi is the league's most babied superstar since Kobe.
You can make the argument that Kawhi wouldn't have developed into the player he is today anywhere but SA. I can buy that to some extent maybe. THEY LITERALLY GIVE THE BALL TO KAWHI AND TELL HIM TO CREATE. Did you watch the Memphis series at all? The Spurs don't really run that beautiful 2012 - 2014 Finals offense anymore. They do a lot more of pounding into the two iso players and this year it's been a lot of Kawhi. Kawhi often plays with two bigs. He plays with Tony Parker who is not an off the ball threat at all. Lebron plays with Kyrie, Love and JR who are all fantastic 3 point threats. The bench lineups Lebron plays with are absurd for spacing. Frye, Korver, Deron Williams. Come on. Kawhi is making all talent plays. Lebron is still Lebron and his court vision seperates him from Kawhi as a player. But please, Kawhi is the damn system in San Antonio. Until this year, I thought it was a joke that people thought Kawhi was better than Paul George. That Kawhi was propped up by the system. Now, I think it's not even a debate and Kawhi is better.
Oh I know Kawhi blows PG out of the water. I'm just saying compared to Lebron he has a much easier road to success, Kawhi is always on a good team year in and year out if he has a bad game he can chill and let Parker, LMA and Gasol carry the load. OTH Lebron has been worked like a dog his entire career, just the mins per game shows this even in Miami when he had Bosh and Wade, Lebron was still the regular season and playoff mins leader. OTH 25 yr old Kawhi is chilling at 33 mpg and he still takes rest days and sits down on blowouts...when did Lebron have this luxury when he was Kawhi's age? Spacing helps Lebron but at the same time just like Harden that spacing helps Lebron win games, it can't win games for Lebron. If Lebron sits out what are the chances of Cavs vs GSW? OTH Spurs is pretty even with GSW even without Kawhi, I mean just 1 pt in OT that game could have gone either way. Cavs still need Lebron to win games, Irving and Love have not been able to do anything by themselves. Spurs can win without Kawhi, so even if Cavs are more synergistic Spurs rely on Kawhi less.
Edit all this for some reason I forgot Kawhi was in game 1. He even had 26 pts lol and I forgot about he was in the game. But still I think Kawhi is way more babied than Lebron. He'll be able to play at a high level for a long time because of the way Popovich manages his health and mins
