I think people seem to forget how easy it is to win in the East until you get to the ECF. The only two legit teams in the east in the last decade have been the Pistons in 04 and the C's in 08. Miami was a one-hit wonder with Wade taking over. The West has new and upcoming teams seemingly every year.. Portland last year... Thunder this year... not to mention the teams that didn't make the playoffs (the Rockets with their young core, the grizzlies with theirs). Point is... it's much harder to win in the west...and the number of championships 7-3 in the last decade proves it.
yup Lebron has gotten by only 1 50 win team so far in his playoff career. That 54 win Pistons team in 06/07
5 of those 7 are from two teams (3-peat Lakers and Duncan spurs). The first 4 of the decade came with Shaq & Kobe together, and Duncan at his peak. Not counting this year, the champ has been West, East, West, East, West, East since 2004. No other West team has done anything, so I wouldn't exactly tout them or a 7-3 mark when it's been 3-3 over the last 6 years.
And he got past them with a weak supporting cast. How far did Kobe get when he had a weak supporting cast? How many healthy 50 win teams has LA beaten in the past 3 postseasons? How many teams has LA beaten in the past 3 postseason that had more talent than LA? Supporting players do matter.
no one's going to argue lebron had a legendary series against the celtics and game 5 was certainly weird/troubling, but in games 4 and 6 he averaged 14 rebounds, 9 assists, and 11.5 fta and the guy he was guarding, pierce, shot 7-21 and scored 11 ppg. if his teammates don't feel like getting behind 24/14/9 with great defense then what are they waiting for? apparently they didn't feel like following his lead when he put up 38/8/8 with a 59% true shooting percentage against the #1 defense in the league last year. are we supposed to blame him there, too? because his teammates don't seem much for lead following when the opponent is good. maybe i missed it but what is your general hangup with lebron? the guy has the best boxscore stats in the regular season, the best APBRmetric stats in the regular season, the best boxscore stats in the playoffs, the best APBRmetric stats in the playoffs, the most ridiculous clutch stats in the game, his plus/minus is ridiculous, the difference in cleveland's offense when he's on and off the court is the difference between #29 minnesota's (101.6) and being #1 in the league (116.6), he was 2nd in the league in scoring with very high efficiency, he set the record for most assists by a forward and made the highest efficiency passes of anyone in the top 10 in assists this year, he plays good defense, you always hear he's a good teammate, etc. i could see if he sucked in the playoffs or never showed up in crunch time or something but that's not the case. when practically all signs point to him being not just the best, but the best by a fairly significant margin, then i guess i don't understand you taking the opposite side. it seems like people (not talking about TheFreak now) love to change the intangibles a person has based on how good their teammates are and thus, how much they win. when jordan was the best in the game but didn't have help, he was a flashy ball hog. when he won, he trusted his teammates and was a leader. but he was basically the same insanely driven and talented guy who took over games, made clutch shots, and had a huge ego and wanted all the glory. when kobe was the best in the game and had no help, he was an ******* who didn't get along with teammates and who hogged the ball and would never go anywhere. now he gets gasol and bynum and a ring and he's a ruthless assassin who motivates everyone and raises their game with his drive. but he's still just the same ridiculously driven, egomaniacal, really good player who still really only trusts himself player he's always been. and now lebron doesn't know how to lead a team and isn't serious enough or doesn't have a post game or any of a million things that all go into not being the perfect player but if he ever gets enough help he'll have undergone this mystical transformation into a dead serious leader and the best player in the game. but he'll probably just be the same ridiculously dominant, high-efficiency, not the purest jump shooter, likes to have fun guy he's always been. but i guess we always need a good story where the hero changes his ways and saves the day.
nope, it's all about the stars. i know it just seems like the stars are worse when their teammates are below average and then it seems like they get better right around the time they get better teammates, but that's just an illusion. all supporting casts are equally talented and equally clutch and then it's just up to the stars to bring it out of them.
Uh way to shut out the main point I was trying to make. LeBron has had an easier road than Kobe. That's a fact. West > East... there's nothing you can throw out there that will dispute the fact that for the last 10 years.. the west has been tougher than the East in the playoffs. 7-3 was something I just threw out there... It doesn't matter who the teams are... they were dominant teams... all of em. They weren't all the same, although the core groups for both those teams were. Just because the east has won 3 in the last 6 years doesn't mean the East was tougher than the West at any point.
How about the fact that he played a 60 win team to begin with in the 1st round... in both 06 and 07. I think it'd be much harder to beat a team who's been that successful in the regular season in the first round than in the conference finals where a team could be vulnerable due to lack of rest or injuries or even psyche. I believe both in 06 and 07, they went to game 7s also... so it wasn't like they just got manhandled.
How is west > east when they are tied for titles in the last half decade? And how has Kobe had a harder path when his team has more talent and he has been facing injured teams in the postseason? What team did LA play that had equal talent besides Boston, who they lost to? Are you really arguing Kobe had it tougher last yr when 3/4 teams were injured?
Geez, this post summarizes how little you know about NBA basketball. 1) Just because the winner of the NBA finals came out from a conference doesn't mean that conference was stronger. You could have the most dominating team in the NBA in the East and everyone else being a ****ter and in the West were you have 8 competitive teams (possibly 4 to come out of the conference) and which conference do you suppose is stronger? It's right there. 2) He PLAYED BETTER TEAMS. The Lakers were injured too. Is Kobe Bryant not playing with injuries right now? Is Bynum not hurt? Is Lamar Odom not hurt? Don't bring those ****ing injuries into this conv. when the Lakers themselves are pretty banged up. The fact that he played better teams is all you need to see. 3) What does talent have to do with anything here? I don't know what you're trying to get at with that, but clearly the Lakers are the most talented team in the league, so obviously you can't have another team match their talent. 4) As opposed to what? LeBron having it tougher? The teams in the west with the injuries were playing better ball than the teams who had their players and still sucked ass. Jazz were an alright team as they should've been, snuck in as the 8th seed with injuries had D-Will and Boozer playing, BUT STILL better than the mediocre pistons team on the other side. Had the Rockets who lost Yao after game 3... but the Rockets still fought hard and to this day no team except the Rockets have taken them to a game 7. I would think those Rockets were better than the Hawks at the time. And then finally they played a pretty healthy Nuggets team... so I don't know where health after that came into play. That Nuggets team was a darn good team.... and so were the Magic.
From what I can tell, most of the LeBron bashing comes from insecure Kobe fans who are threatened by LeBron's possible ascension as the "new" best player in the NBA (even though he's been the best player for at least three years now). These fans will even go so far as to bash Kobe's teammates (Gasol, Odom, and Bynum mostly) in order to make it seem like Kobe, too, has a limited supporting cast. There is no way to accurately compare two players in any team sport. However, looking at individual stats is a far better measure than comparing accolades, since accolades are more a function of the team than the individual. Also, in the brief time LeBron and Kobe did play together-- in the Olympics-- LeBron completely outperformed Kobe; that may not mean a lot due to the different rules and limited sample, but it means something.
I don't know what's to argue here. Kobe had to win over 3 50 wins team to be in finals 2 of last 3 years. LeBron had won 1
I don't know what's to argue here. Kobe had to win over 3 50 wins team to be in finals 2 of last 3 years. LeBron had won 1 series over 50+ team and he's already in finals once. Is there any player in history more hyped with less impressive playoff success?
On the contrary, I see some LBJ fans making the same excuse like TMac fans did. Always bashing roles player. You don't win 60+ games in regular season by yourself. If LeBron can't win in playoff and LBJ fans have to cry for quality roles, they may as well ask league to rescind the MVPs.
Heck . . . that was because THOSE TEAMS WHERE THERE Put them on the Eastern side. . . and none of the teams over there would have nothing to show Rocket River
What team did LeBron play en route to finals? 2 pathetic teams that wouldn't make playoff in west. And another team that had a record as good as Rockets.
Gasol was never better than prime Pippen. And Kobe managed to win it all. And Kobe wasn't better than MJ. Now if LBJ needs overwhelming help to get a ring, how is he better than Pierce?
what he's obviously trying to get at is that kobe having a tougher road doesn't mean that much if he is playing on the most talented team in the league. the lakers have only played one "more talented" team in the last 3 years and they lost to them. so it's not as if kobe is overcoming superior teams to get these wins. regardless of regular season records, a healthy boston team had 4 of the 5 best players in that cleveland series and that's why they won. while that is probably true in quite a few cases, i seem to remember TheFreak as not exactly being kobe's biggest fan. so what's your explanation if it's not the role players inability to step up in the playoffs? if lebron's style is so impossible for anyone to play with, then why is the team able to win 60+ in the regular season? and if the cavs play the same style in the playoffs and lebron plays at least as well as, if not better than, he does in the regular season, then why are they losing if it's not that their role players are not keeping up with the elite teams' role players? what variable is left? it's not like someone can argue with a straight face that williams, jamison, and shaq weren't poor on offense and weren't liabilites on defense in the boston series. if we're bringing tmac in here, as far as he's fallen off and as much as he's on everyone's **** list (including mine), it's not as if he could have played any better in a couple of our series. i mean he put up 30/7/7 and shut down dirk in the dallas series. are we supposed to blame him for the losses because we give him credit for the wins, even when he couldn't play any better? did michael jordan deserve the blame when he scored 63 and lost to the celtics since we gave jordan credit for the wins? what ridiculous line of logic is that? it's weird, time and again we see exceptional changes in results from upgrades in role players, and yet all anyone wants to analyze is the stars and what they must now be doing or not doing to have caused these exceptional changes. jordan, hakeem, and kobe are all champions who couldn't get out of the first when their supporting casts were less than stellar and now we want to act like it's impossible that lebron's supporting cast could be anything less than championship worthy because they win lots of regular season games, as if this is the first example ever of a team leading the league in wins and then not winning the championship when the real "best" teams finally bring it full force in the playoffs.
