people on this site love to hate on lebron and then proclaim they wouldnt give up buddinger for carmelo. some believe that some role players are going to will us to a championship, we can respect the rockets because we have guys that suck that are not expected to win anything and not get into the playoffs. but when you have someone like lebron james who is expected to win a championship,( when or if you put probably anyone on our starting line up last year on the cavs, (except chuck) would be the teams next best player after bron) we as rockets fans are suppose to trash him for underachieving. because the rockets are overachievers, we had a winning record, we won 2 more games than we lost last year, be proud of that, cavs fans having nothing to be proud about last year, they only had the best regular season record and lost in the 2nd round. rockets didnt lose a game in the playoffs, rockets didnt have an mvp, rockets are 9th place overachievers! whoopie! I LOVE THE ROCKETS, but the hate for lebron on this site is ridiculous, i would have thought he strangled his wife to death by the reactions of fans on this site. lebrons is the 2 time reigning mvp period, you cant argue with that, hands down best player in the game right now.
Ok goody for you....you like Lebron....... To me, he is the enemy.......I thought the same of Barkley too until he was traded here. DD
I don't even want to touch this opinion. So I'll just poke at it gently from afar with a stick. I chuckled.
so if yao ming a choker? no rings and has only been out of the first round once. at least lebron has been to the finals?
The problem with Lebron IMHO is people have different expectations for him. 20-16 would have been a career performance for any other player, but for Lebron that's quitting. In what universe would 20-16 be choking? C'mon now, even MJ isn't held to that kind of standard. However LBJ seems like the anti-MJ-whereas people look at all the MJ hype and wanna be like Mike, people look at LBJ dancing on the court and want to stick it at the king. There's no point in arguing with LBJ haters because their hate isn't based on any kind of logical reasoning in the first place. Just let them hate and vent, because quite frankly you don't really owe LBJ anything to be defending them against irrational arguments in the first place. As for the topic at hand, to me choking is someone who performs significantly worse than his regular season production. Mo Williams is a good example of this. An even better example is Luther Head during the JVG era. He shot efficiently during the regular season, then shot something like 1-12 in the playoffs. That's the definition of choking IMHO.
He's played amazing in the playoffs. We're result oriented. It's the same as saying T-Mac choked in the playoffs. T-Mac's numbers and performance improves in the playoffs yet as he doesn't win a series, he's called a choker and a loser. Same thing with Lebron. Despite having some all time legend performances, as he doesn't have a ring, he's called a choker. At the same time Kobe Bryant who shot under 30% in the 4th quarter of the NBA Finals will be called clutch and a cold blooded assassin and complimented because his team won. It's that simple. HOWEVER, Lebron did seem to quit on his team during the last 3 games against Boston. He stopped attacking and seemed to just let the game happen instead of being active and dominating.
According to Webster: Choke: to lose one's composure and fail to perform effectively in a critical situation. Quit: to cease normal, expected, or necessary action; to admit defeat; to give up. I think LeBron was more quit than choke in some games. But he has been phenomenal the vast majority of the times.
Please elaborate. What exactly is wrong with my opinion that Wade won the championship with a good team. They were a 50+ win team and were only minutes away from being in the Finals the previous season. They were ranked in the top 10 in offense and defense. They had two All-NBA team players. Wade certainly carried the team in the Finals against Dallas, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a good team.
Lebron isn't a choker. His choice to do "The Decision" ruined his image. And unless he wins a championship he will probably never live it down. But it can be done [remember Kobe cheating on his wife/alleged rape charge? (to be fair the criminal charges were dropped) The media doesn't really talk about it now. Winning/success can take care of almost anything in this country. Bill Clinton?]
Its pretty messed up that "The Decision" is apparently comparable to raping someone and cheating on your wife. Kobe also publicly threw a fit to be traded but he is largely considered as a better person than lebron
Fair enough. I agree that they were a weak championship team. I think they're pretty comparable to the 2004 Pistons, another team that never should have won a championship, and only did because they came out of a weak Eastern conference and their Finals opponent self destructed. It's amazing to me how many people discredit Lebron's trip to the Finals because his team ended up getting smoked by the Spurs, but give so much credit to Wade, who pretty much had the championship handed to him by a combination of horrible refs and Dallas choking. While Lebron has had at least some playoff success every year since then (losing to the Eastern conference champ after round one every year), Wade has done nothing and he's still considered the "winner."
my problem with lebron is that he took a ****ty team to the finals, but then when he had a team that was a true title team he pussed out. basically he did exactly what iverson did in 2001. take a ****ty team from the east( which had no one, but an aging pistons team with flip saunders) and then get smoked by an actual team in the west. the last 2 years with a stacked team he couldn't do ****. that is where the problem lies. he can do just as much with nothing, as he can with a stacked team. basically having lebron might make you compete, but it doesn't necessarily put you over the top
joe johnson is a choker. when your playoffs performance drastically falls from your reg. season performance, you're a choker. dude was a ghost the last 2 playoff runs. that's a definition of a choker
