lebron was all-nba defense 1st team last year, and he will be for years to come. and he was top 3 in defensive player of the year voting last year. and the cavs have consistently been one of the best defensive teams in the league despite lacking a dominant shotblocker. c'mon, let's be serious now. making your teammates better don't necessarily have to be in stats (although mo will made the all-star team playing with lebron, varejao got a $6 mil/yr playing with lebron, gibson got a big contract b/c of lebron, and i can go on), it's bringing up their talent level, and improving the team as a whole. the cavs don't have a lot of "star" talent outside of lebron james. let's look at the east. the celtics/magic/hawks/wizards all have better talent than the cavs "collectively." and i guarantee you nobody would be surprised if the cavs beat them in he playoffs. it's not an upset. why? lebron james. and to answer your point about kobe making others better. watch the offense. the TRIANGLE OFFENSE. again, you keep sayin lebron doesn't make anyone better. and yet i keep hearing it from every damn coach/GM/analyst when they talk about lebron. you would think they know something about the game.
Kobe was in all nba defense team when he's 22. LBJ so far is just a good help defender, his man on man is just average. There's a reason Kobe's the on-ball guard in Olympics. Mo didn't have better stats at all, he made all star because 2 star players were injured in the east. Varejao and Gibson will get a good contract elsewhere, maybe not as fat. But they can find their place in NBA. They are no Smush parker or Trevor Ariza. And you can't simply ignore how Hughes and Shaq diminish in Cavs. Celtics when healthy, and Magic are more talented, that's true. And didn't they beat Cavs last 2 years? The other teams are not, actually, the other teams can't make playoff in west last year. The only team Cavs beat with west playoff caliber was Pistons 2 years ago, that's about it. Cavs won one time with HCA, and lost one time with it. Lakers lost one time with it, but won 5-6 times without it for the last decade. Kenny talked about it on TNT, he talked about position offense. You don't have to run through LBJ for every possession. Just play in the flow, move without the ball, and someone will get an open look for a good portion of possessions. In Cavs, every possession is boring and laboring. Brown certainly should be blamed for this, but LBJ doesn't really make roles better as a result. I've showed how Hughes and Shaq's numbers slump after traded to Cavs. Someone cared to show some counter cases here? Why not cut the crap and show some old school numbers?
Just happened to see Ben Wallace's stats. Ben was said to be old and done in Cavs. rb/pt 0708 CHI 8.8/5.1 0809 CLE 6.5/2.9 0910 DET 9.8/4.5 Was it coincidence or Ben just had to make way for LBJ? We all know he's useless out of paint. Talk about making teammates better.
He has a top 5 skillset but all of those centers could drop big numbers in a more efficient manner, and Kobe has always decided not to always take more efficient shots so I don't think we can say he could if he wanted to. He is what he shows us. His %s aren't bad, but he isn't a more efficient offensive player than the duds I mentioned and they could all drop 30 a night too. Well, not Magic but he was a special case.
Dude, are you really saying Shaq last year was as good as Gasol??? Even if that were true, what about Bynum and Odom? Then the rest of the team? The fact is last year the Lakers were stacked. LeBron has never been on a team like the ones Kobe won titles with. WHAT LEBRON TEAM WOULD KOBE HAVE TAKEN FURTHER?
Wallace was old at that time. He started to decline in Detroit, which is why they didn't want to extend him. Are you just throwing these dudes out here and looking at numbers or do you honestly not know the effect that age had on the players you are mentioning? It's kinda like me saying the Rockets with Dream, Barkley and Clyde had the best talent ever even though all were old and declining.
Bleh. He's made up his mind, forget it. BTW, Ben is playing more minutes in Detroit than in Cleveland. And Hughes has been steadily declining after leaving the Cavs. Unless that's somehow Lebron's fault too. Tell me one person who wants to trade for that dude.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LcaVC4Zh6XU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LcaVC4Zh6XU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Argument is over.
The argument is not that LeBron ever has a team as good as Lakers of last 2 years. He never had one. But he didn't do magic either. Cavs won as an underdog once, they only beat one 50+ team so far. And at the same time lost as an topdog once last year. Kobe in comparison has much better record being underdog. The argument is that, every player, particular good players, start to suck in Cavs. And for the record, I am sure Kobe will lead last year's Cavs over Magic.
Wallace just happened to have better numbers when he's not in Cavs. Shaq and Hughes had a slump traded to Cavs. These are damn facts. Shaq gradually deteriorates over years, but not a slump. You have to have better excuses than that. Plus, you can't even give a counter example. Sure Gibson and Varejao got contract due to LBJ to an extent. But it's because Cavs had no cap and no one wanted to do S&T with them. No one saw them attractive either. That's different from how Smush and Ariza got contracts as FA elsewhere. Damn, if LBJ really made teammates better. How come he couldn't make Mo a deserving all star? On the contrary, he just had a worse fg% and much less assists.
Excuses Excuses Excuses. James was hyped up as a basketball god even before he started his first NBA game. It is now his what seventh year in the league and he does not have a single ring. All we get from him and his enablers in the media and blogs are excuses. For crying out loud the great legends of the NBA laced their sneakers, spit on the floor, fought and bled with the best of them, but you never heard any excuses. Look folks, James is a very good player so he doesn't need to have excuses for his and his team's failures. He needs to man up and go get rings instead of taunting his opponents who are already down and out of games. And, like with McGrady, he should not have his rabid fans making excuses for him, he should be man enough and specifically state that he is capable of leading his team to at least a championship with no excuses if he fails. The real great ones took their teams to championships but made no excuses when they were still struggling to get to the top. James is nowhere close to any of the NBA legends, he is not even worthy to clean up after them.
another side point, remember when lebron 'strained' his finger, sat out for 2 plus weeks, no broken, displacement, simply strained..kobe broke his surgery and doctors said he needed surgery, i remember hollinger(who has a hate affair with kobe) said he was being immature and cocky not to get this surgery and not think of bigger picture. Well he put off surgery, wont the championship, then won the gold metal in the team USA games and just played through. I think he said it himself where he grew up in the 80s 90s style of ball, with hand checking and roughing up and you can see he still gets down, dirty, and physical on defense like they used to. On oppose to lebron played his whole career without hand checking( i believe his rookie year was before the rule was instated, he shot under 39 % and was among top in league in turnovers). Now you have an NBA catered to guys like him with supreme athleticism, yet less skill and to open up the game, they had to adjust calls to inflate their stats(youll often see lebron get 12 free throws while shooting 12 shots) and players who have played both styles claim that euro ball is more physical than the NBA now. Euro softies are tougher than the NBA ball now even though were bigger and stronger? Even Larry Brown complained about the flow of the game being gone with all these calls, ofcourse ESPN writers went at him saying who is he to say that because he has a slow style of game but thats not what he meant, not fast pace or slow pace, but flow of the game without being interrupted by refs dictating the action. This is a hit on lebron as much as itis to the NBA to accomodate it, rather than letting him struggle and reach his full potential, dude has a lot, its unfortunate People talk about kobe complaining after calls, there's no one who gets more absurd about small calls and even won't accept when he travels or so on(which he does often). He is a spoiled princess.
Kobe has a better record as an underdog? As the leader of his team, this is what happened in all of his underdog situations: - missed playoffs right after Shaq lef - blew 3-1 lead to Suns, as he quit in Game 7 - lost to Suns in Round 1 - miserable Finals against Boston, which ended with a 39 point blowout and him quitting again - crying to get traded What successful underdog situations are you thinking of? As far as making teammates better, it's funny how star players suddenly seem to figure out how to make dudes better when they have better talent around them. We heard that same dumb logic about MJ, Dream and Kobe when he didn't sniff round 2 in 3 seasons.
Please Kobe willed that team, it was an impressive feat just to see him take players like Kwame Brown and Smush Parker that far. Not making players better? Why did Trevor Ariza go from the Knicks bench to an imperative element for a chanmpionship team? Why does Pau Gasol go from a 0 win playoff record to being recognized as one of the best PF's in the league? Why is Ron Artest saying he feels Kobe is helping him become a better player? Where does Shannon Brown come from? From being a no name on a Bobcats team to suddenly being a high flying "Ariza" type player at the guard position for L.A.? I can go on to countless of situations where KB has done much for his team mates. (Helping Sasha Vujacic, Caron Butler, Josh Powell) Kobe is addicted to winning, hard work, excellence, perfection. Results are what matter. And thanks to an amazing #2 option in Pau now, he's definitely exemplifying why he's the best and doing it while winning.
He willed them by quitting in Game 7, and blowing a 3-1 lead? What other player do you not that hasn't taken major flack for being up 3-1 and not closing, especially when they basically gave up in the 2nd half of Game 7. As far as the rest of your post, I'm not stating Kobe doesn't make teams better. I stated isn't it ironic how players suddenly make players better when they get other good players around them. If you want to say Kobe is better I'm not going to argue with you. But don't point to rings when Kobe has never taken a non stacked team anywhere, and LeBron has never played on a stacked team. We have seen how far Kobe could take a team that wasn't stock full of talent, and it wasn't any further than T-Mac could lead his squad.
Kobe was the leader since 2002-2003 season. He's the leading scorer, and he got more MVP votings than Shaq since 02-03. If you need to heal company injury on company time, you can't be the leader. In 03 and 04 playoff, they both won 1 series without HCA. Now if you want to go back to 01 and 02, they won 1 series each without HCA too and Kobe's the best performer to sweep Spurs in 2001. Kobe has at least won 4 series without HCA and lost only 1 with it. And he's never lost 1 series with HCA since 05. How about LBJ? It's a joke when a team that had the best homecourt record in history was just an average team on the road. And you know why? It's hard to play 5v8.
They were one rebound away from winning it. Just unlucky. And if not for Kobe's miracles double game winning shots, they'd lost game 4 in the first place. In game 7, he shot a lot in first half and they're behind by 15 points? what do you want him to do? Got another 23 points and lost by 30? Hell, ther're underdog, they didn't have enough talent. So they lost, so be it. Didn't Cavs choke away a big double digits lead in their first game? Did anyone blame it on LBJ? You can argue all day but you can't even show the numbers of ONE LBJ's teammate that he obviously make better the way Kobe did to Smush, Ariza and Shannon. And on the contrary, you have Shaq, Hughes playing like crap. How about address that?
You are definitely living in dreamland if you think Kobe's better than LBJ. First of Daryl Morey himself already said LBJ is the best by a wide margin. Who needs to provide numbers? What do you think DM uses as basis for his conclusions? His gut? If anything, why don't you come out with a statistical analysis that proves LBJ is the inferior player, because the Rockets number dude already said otherwise? Secondly about making his teammates better, LBJ inherited a crappy team, and if you take him out of that Cleveland roster I guarantee even the Nets are a better team than they are. You call him another "AI", but when did AI have several 60+ win teams? Hell, when did AI have a 50+ winning team? LBJ makes everyone better so much better that even a garbage roster becomes a contender. What more proof do you need? Shaq is 37 years old already, you think he won't stink? The only thing that kept him going was PHX's medical staff, now that he away from there he's gone back to earth. Larry Hughes was always a garbage player. He stunk in Cleveland, and he stunk even more in Chicago and New York. Or are you saying LBJ ruined him so much that it affected him even after he moved away? As for Kobe, for his first three rings he played with Shaq at his prime, and now he's playing Odom and Gasol at their prime. I'm not saying Kobe is a coat rider at all, but don't say **** about winning rings being everything when Kobe has PJ and Shaq before, and then PJ and Odom and Gasol now. Are you really comparing Z to Gasol by saying they are both all stars? You are on crack if you think Z is half the player Gasol is.
Kobe wasn't the leader in 02/03, he wasn't even the teams best player (which is fine, he still played a very important role). And the Lakers weren't underdogs. No one expected them not to win at that time. And they didn't have HC because of injuries during the season. They weren't the underdogs in 03 or 04 either....and the fact that you are asserting they were underdogs in 04 when they had Malone and Payton, and blew the Finals against a Pistons team that no one expected to win really speaks on the credibility of what you are posting.
