Again this ignores defense. Cavaliers struggled the whole season and playoffs because of bad defense and LeBron has to take some blame here although a lot of this has to do with age to be fair. If Durant and LeBron swapped teams this season, Cavaliers would be better defensively because Durant actually would defend much better. Also LeBron is a double-edged sword on offense. He is so ball dominant that he is a very teammate neutralizing player and this has been the case his whole career even. This is not the case of Durant at all. In any case, I'm not even talking about this past season. I'm talking about right now and going forward. LeBron is being surpassed just due to age if nothing else. If all rosters were empty today and you had to pick one player and just for next season on a one year contract, you're not picking 34 year old LeBron over the likes of Durant or Harden.
quality of player(or anything else for that matter) is not a matter of consensus...majority is often if not always wrong... as per cp3 being more important , perhaps but unfortunately chris got injured and played 2 games less so harden was more important, and without harden I doubt we win game 7
Nope. Ariza and Tucker made him a non-factor in games 4 and 5. That was Chris Paul's Finals MVP trophy.
1 nobody is in hardens tier surely not a davis (stop it!) 2 well perhaps lebron is... but he is not showing it in RS..until lebron shows up in RS Harden is the best player 3 curry and durant arent on Harden level as well ....he just would have beat them as a lone star in WCF were it not for the horrible officiating...
Lol harden "stepped up" this playoffs as much as lebron Unless you sure lebron no harden no cp3 6 man rotation could have beated the warriors once in 2 tries
The goal of basketball is not to have one player maximizing his potencial and performing the best possible, but to have whole team play at that level. This is where LeBron is somewhat unproven. He hasn't been a part of truly great team, Heat were good, but even team like Kobe-Gasol Lakers were as good as that if not better. I don't doubt LeBron's ability as a floor raiser. He is amazing at that. I do wonder about his portability(co-existing with other top players, especially bigs) and ceiling raising ability. He can prove that by going to the Rockets, make them all-time great and go something like 16-2 in the playoffs. Then there is no questions. But that's not given, it wouldn't be surprising if Rockets had a worse year with LeBron next season due to redundancy with Paul and Harden(and age decline) and lost again in the playoffs. Right now I'm not sure he is as good at that as he is at carrying mediocre rosters and to me that's more important, because ultimately you want to build a dominant team, not a mediocre roster with one great player. So yes, Durant has an argument. He has raised Warriors ceiling, which is hard to do once the team is so good already, fixed their inability to score well against elite defenses in the playoffs. What LeBron did this season doesn't change anything and shows nothing new. What truly matters is how good players are playing with other top players(every dynasty had multiple HOF, elite players), not how good they are at carrying a mediocre roster with zero chance to win a title.
The last sentence is really spot on. There's no question that few players can carry an otherwise mediocre squad to playoff wins like LeBron. But judging players solely on that criteria is very misguided. LeBron can carry mediocre teams because he is a ball hogging, ball dominant, iso heavy player that just needs others to be role players. But that also means he neutralizes his teammates in many cases. LeBron is better at carrying mediocre teammates than Durant probably. But Durant is better as a teammate enhancing player than LeBron.
Lol so kd can enhance those cats and win with them? Lol You act like lebron wont have 2 rings now if he not kd bandwagonned with gsw 2 years ago
harden had a 53.8 TS% and paul had a 52.2 TS%. also, harden 29/6/6 to paul 20/7/5. harden did suck in the 4th quarter but it's also easier to score in the 4th if you didn't carry the team for the first 3 quarters. they worked well together and could have beat an all-time great team with health (or refs or 0-27 shooting).
Like its hard for durant to win on that team. Give me a break. Lebron would be winning easy championships with them too. Stupid.
1) Lebron 2) Durant 3) Harden 4) Davis 5) Curry 6) Giannis 7) Westbrook 8) Paul 9) Butler 10) Lillard Give or take
KD has not "won" a single championship and every basketball fan knows it. Not saying he couldn't but I am saying that he didn't. And everyone will always remember that. Comparing KD's career to Lebron is laughable.
