not the playoff version yao. if u talk about a pre-injury yao, then yea. but not the yao that played v. the jazz. i would rather want deke playing 20 mins and yao 28 mins. and shane is not better as hughes. why? hughes can handle the ball and create. and he can penetrate. shane is as one-dimensional as u get. and yea, hughes plays D. we dont have a PF who can hustle like hayes and shoot. they do in gooden. Z is not yao, but he at least gives them a post game. and ultimately, they have big man wh ocan shoot AGAIN in marshall and gooden to stretch the floor. and yea, didn't i say the cavs are the best offensive rebounding team in the L. and again, the yao u saw in the playoffs is not better than 3 players on the cavs. if we had Z, he would put up the same thing b/c there was single coverage and we went to yao A LOT. Z would have given us 19-20 pts easily too.
trust me, if bron was on this team, then who would be ur go-to guy in the 4th? trust me, watch him more. every great player wil lshow up b/c they're great. but if ur gonna complain about tmac, trust me, u would want kobe or wade. u dont want lebron. he is not that great of a closer. and y'all be leaving into that "leadership" by yelling at his teammates stuff. even wade admits he doesn't do that. duncan said he doesn't do that. the best way to lead is lead by example. look at how the laker role players wilts under kobe.
I don't understand why Tmac gets all this hate when he has been the best Rocket on the floor in both the Jazz and the Mavs series. Sure, we lost two Game 7s, but they were against OUTSTANDING teams. If anyone should get the blame it's Yao, who as Clutch put it plays like "a furry bunny rabbit wrapped in linen frolicking on a grassy knoll eating pink buttercups". Tmac has gotten older now, and his ability to drive and finish has diminished. He isn't going to be like a 22 year old Lebron James dunking over defenders. His finishing ability isn't what it used to be, yet he still makes scrubs like Head, Battier, and Alston better players.
its easy - w/ tmac's playoff record, call him soft/weak/lazy/not focused/no heart... thats why blinebury does. u see lebron choking for 5 straight 4th quarters spanning thte nets and pistons, and then has two great games, and everyone has him a "better leader" than tmac. it's very easy to do so. i dont blame them. if i didn't follow tmac like i have, i would too. i mean, if howard/head/alston knock down half of thoe shots, they be playing the, "tmac is the best superstar to make his teammates better." and so on.
I'll leave it alone after this post. Big Zero is barely a shadow of Yao. He just isn't that good. Donyell Marshall is another major bust of a mistake by the Cavs. Nuff said about the injury-prone mentally weak chemistry buster know as Larry Hughes who is stealing the Cavs money. Try forgetting about what he CAN do and look at what he actually produces. Gooden is a yoyo who played out of his mind tonight.
i dont want to be the guy who bashes yao, but EVERYONE on here, including me, thought yao was gonna go OFF. he was our clearest mismatch. he was the player the jazz supposed to have "no answers to." and yet he gets more single coverages as the series wore on. yao was supposed to have a bigger impact v. the jazz than tmac did. if we were playing phoenix or golden state, then tmac would be a bigger mismatch. but not utah. but really, yao is not there yet and ready to lead a team. so u dont see a lot of the ppl blaming him. and rightfully so. the media still thinks this is tmac's team.
The reason I haven't piled on Yao harder is because it's evident injuries slowed him a lot against Utah. If not, then he deserved to get slammed just like Tracy. His dinosaur slow moves and predictability made him very easy to defend.
How can you compare LeBron's leadership to Kobe's? Kobe goes through entire games where he shoots 40 times and has 0 assists, LeBron is one of the best passers in the NBA. Don't you think that's a big reason in why Kobe's teammates don't like him? Michael Jordan was way tougher on teammates than LeBron and nobody calls him a bad leader. There's more than one way to lead, you can't tell me LeBron is a bad leader because he's more vocal than T-Mac.
but didn't he punk the jazz earlier after his injury. that's why we were so excited to face the jazz b/c yao would eat them alive??? even if he's not fully healthy, it's not like he was just back from injury now. but agian A_3PO, that cavs roster is better than u think. they have more hustle players than us. they have better rebounders (offensive) than us. they have guys who can knock down shots. all those things we lack. and it helps they play in the east. again, if u want to solve this argument, if houston (without yao) faces the cavs, who do u think will win in a 7 game series? i put my money on us.
See, I'm not into putting down Tmac, but if we're talking about 4th quarters is Tmac that much better? Really??? And I've watched plenty of Cavs games. Trust me. I've been watching them since Mark Price and Brad Daugherty were one of the best duo's when they shared the court. I can't even believe we're comparing Lebron to Kobe in leadership. I agree, a leader doesn't have to yell. I don't think Lebron does (except in the literal sense when it's loud in the arena). He doesn't scold his teammates or pout when his teammates miss shots (Kobe's facial expressions are priceless). Lebron told Gibson not to be afraid to take shots when he's open. He told Gooden to take it strong last game. I think those two listened tonight. Don't knock him for being vocal. I don't knock Tmac for being non-vocal either. Depends on the team and the person.
Yes, and you're saying that they wilt because he's vocal and you'd prefer a guy who leads by example. I'm saying they wilt because he's selfish and cares nothing about giving them easy looks. You can't lump LeBron in with Kobe in this regard. And your hypothetical with Cavs-Rockets without T-Mac won't solve anything because it's all opinion, and one that holds little weight considering T-Mac's history in 7 game series with a subpar supporting cast.
i actually agree with u. i criticize kobe's way actually and said u don't have to be vocal to be a good leader. tmac leads by example. remember that detroit game 2 yrs ago when he told head to shoot if he's open and went for the GW. he keeps telling hayes to keep shooting, same w/ alston, same w/ deke. tmac is vocal, but not in the same of a KG or a shaq or someone who talks a lot. and no im not criticizng lebron for his 4th quarter b/c i want to criticize him. im just bringing up a point for ppl on here who says he's a better "leader" and "finisher" than tmac, and im just bringing up those stats to prove lebron is not even on the level of tmac in terms of that. so if they're gonna whine about tmac, they're gonna whine about lebron even more if he was on this team. i do like lebron. he's my 2nd fav player outside of tmac. i enjoy his play b/c he plays similar to tmac and unlike kobe, he faciklitates/creates play for others before himself.
if the cavs had lost the last 2 games, and they could have, would lebron be any less of a leader? i'm still pissed at the no-show of out two superstars against the jazz, but damn this is ridiculous. its stupid to think you can measure heart, or leadership by the few minutes of bench time and talking points you watch on TNT.
i didn't lump lebron. im saying ppl on this board thinks leading is yelling at your teammates and all that. i dont think lebron does that all the time. he's very similar to TMAC in how they approach a game. and well, lebron history with the 7th game is not so bad either i think we would beat them in 6 actually. we own the east THAT BADLY even without yao.
Tmac is a great player. Lebron is better, it isn't close. Lebron is a top 4 player, maybe top 2. What is funny is Lebron was criticized when he passed to Marshall for a 3 to win on the road. The same play Magic would have done (Perkins stealing game 1 of the finals), the same play Jordan did (to Paxon/Kerr). You guys can break down all the individual skills of Tmac or Kobe to Lebron, but in the team game the latter is more relentless and gets his teammates behind him in ways the others can't, and that far away makes up for their pure scoring differences. Some of yall probably think Kobe and Tmac were better than Magic or Bird too. Lebron IMO is somewhere between Pippen and Magic. And I was on record that the pick should have been Anthony. But you have to be blind not to see how good he is (I admit I was wrong), and Cleveland would not be in the playoffs, east or not, without him. Finally, lets remember the East have won what 11 of the last 18 NBA final games--they are not as bad at the top as people think. And if Detroit can't handle him at all, and they havn't for 2 years, that should tell you something.
say what? it isn't close? have u seen their head-to-head matchups? tmac has OWNED lebron. but after this offseason where tmac will train himself back into the best shape of his career, u will see THIS tmac (notice all the highlights are rocket and not magic highlights) <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rnAtFIbMfLs"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rnAtFIbMfLs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Lebron>>>>>TMac (i don't like the former but i've gotta admit that) no amount of argument from TOFs is gonna change this fact. unfortunately, tmac is also going downhill soon while James hasn't even peaked yet.
You accuse me of making judgment on James based on one game (though I have watched many more), but you make judgment on me based on one comment? I fail to see the logic, professor. If you read my other comments, you would have noticed that I also said that James seems to be growing out of his selfishness. For that, I commend him.
