LeBron played ~46 minutes, and Cleveland was +7 in that time. For the 2 minutes he sat, they were -12.
That award to the Sixers can only be even arguably justified by two words…
Wilt Chamberlain.
And, BTW, for my money, all that talk of past teams and who was the best in NBA history will now become moot. Since this year’s Golden State Warriors are decidedly the finest team ever. I do not see how anybody who has been watching them this post-season, and especially after last night’s (Game 3) comeback win, can possibly say any different.
I don’t think this is accurate. The Cavs were middle of the pack (16th/30) in pace this year and 2nd in the league in 3-point frequency. They’re not a low-post team, they’re a pick-and-roll, dish to an open 3 point shooter team.
I have become a devout believer in Lebron, but he’s always had a tendency to do this in big games. I think Lebron has a tendency to overthink things a bit at times. It comes from a good place – I think Lebron wants to be unselfish, not because of his concern for his self-image but because he genuinely buys into the notion that it’s a team game and that’s how you win, by distributing the ball. Similarly, I think he sometimes has a tendency to overthink his own shot selection. He could just basically leap over someone and dunk it and draw fouls, but it’s like he tries to use reverse psychology and establish a fade shot so that he can dunk at a different moment.
It’s insane to me that LeBron almost single handedly beats what is probably the greatest team in NBA history, and the lesson we learn from that is “see, LeBron just can’t do it on the big stage”
They were +7 with LeBron in. He sat for 2 whole minutes in that game, during which they were -12. The team only lost because LeBron sat 2 fucking minutes in a game where he was putting out an insane energy expenditure.
LeBron dragged a fucking lottery team to the finals in 2007, and instead of saying “holy shit one player kept a lottery team competitive against one of the best teams in NBA history”, people are like “SEE, JORDAN WON ALL HIS CHAMPIONSHIPS, LECHOKE”
I honestly think LeBron is significantly underrated, because people have this really stupid bias against the team that loses championship games, instead of recognizing them as theoretically the second best team in the league. Like how the Buffalo Bills of the 90s are a joke because they won their conference 4 straight times and yet teams that didn’t even make the playoffs those 4 years don’t get mocked. Similarly, if LeBron ends up going to 10 finals games and wins 6 of them, people will use this to prove he’s worse than Jordan, because Jordan went 6/6, and LeBron is somehow worse for making it to the finals 4 more times when Jordan failed earlier in the playoffs.
If Tom Brady took a team of high school football players to the superbowl and lost, we’d be saying “holy shit, that’s the greatest feat of all time”, not “lol Tom Brady is a choker, can’t even win the big game”… now obviously the 2016-17 Cavs aren’t a high school team, but the 2007 Cavs that he dragged to the finals were terrible. But the same logic applies - GS this year is probably the most talented team ever to play by a decent margin, and LeBron is the only thing that keeps games from being 30 point blowouts, and yet he’s still taking criticism for it.
Hey don’t get me twisted; I was just picking a few nits in that previous post. But I 100% agree with what you wrote: Lebron is an absolutely amazing player and I agree that a lot of people tend to make a false comparison between Lebron and Jordan’s championship resumes. Yes MJ won six titles, which is impressive, but Lebron has been in the Finals now every year since 2011. He has been in either the semi-finals or the finals in every single year over the past decade except for one year when they were beaten by the eventual champion Boston Celtics in 2008, and the Cavs actually gave the Celtics their toughest test that year. Interesting that you mention Tom Brady because that’s a very Brady-esque accomplishment. Lebron reminds me a lot of John Elway in the NFL. Everyone talks about the times that he lost but forget that, as you said, he dragged very unremarkable teams into the semi-finals and final rounds of the post-season.
LeBron hasn’t been playing with replacement level players since he took his talents to South Beach. He’s been playing in the Eastern Conference with at least one other All-Star, usually 2, every year. In those 7 seasons, his team doesn’t make the Finals in four of them, if he played in the non-joke conference. LeBron of a decade ago is not the LeBron of today.
This year, LeBron got out-LeBroned by Durant, and the salt level across the league rivals the Dead Sea. The crazy thing is that even if Steph Curry was making the same as James, the Warriors would still being paying less in salary than the Cavaliers. LeBron’s superteams are expensive and underwhelming.
Don’t get me wrong, LeBron James is a transcendental player and is a joy to watch, no matter your leanings. But The Decision, followed by The Return, combined with the Sean Penn-level acting ability for flopping have soured me towards him. I mean, the guy threw his head back like he took another Tristan Thompson shoulder when Curry got an almost completely clean swipe on a drive. It’s like a segment of “C’mon Man” at some points.
We sure as hell cannot call the two teams meeting in the finals the two best teams in the league when the conferences are as unbalanced as they’ve been during the entire Lebron prime. He gets a free trip to the finals every year, that doesn’t make his team the second best. Back when the east had some semi legit contenders in Orlando and Boston they both ended up beating his 60 win Cavs. This is what people mean when they say Lebron can’t hack it in big games: he has 11 points on 36% shooting in the fourth quarter in all three games combined. That’s 11 points TOTAL, not combined. The game wasn’t lost because the Cav scrubs couldn’t hack it for 2 minutes on the second quarter.
LeBron puts in crazy energy and effort and minutes into the game - he’s just exhausted by the fourth quarter. Does anyone else in the NBA put as much effort as he does, and carry his team on his back as much as he does? The guy is 32 and still plays 46 minutes a game while being the clear centerpiece of his team. No shit his fourth quarter stats are going to sag.
Given the splits, it more or less really was “because scrubs couldn’t hack it for 2 minutes in the second quarter”, that’s a +7 vs -12, a 19 point difference. You don’t think a 19 point difference is enough to be the thing that lost the game?
I’ll argue against that, a bit. The fourth quarter of games 1 and 2 were already out of reach - there’s only so much you can fight fate at that point. Game 3, the Warriors won that at the end as much as the Cavaliers lost it. LeBron definitely made some bad decisions, like choosing a fadeaway jumper instead of going straight to the bucket. But Smith, Korver, Love, and Irving all missing 3 pointers, and Cleveland allowed 12 seconds to run off the clock before fouling. Throw in a couple turnovers, and you have the makings of a comeback from six points down in three minutes. The Warriors made 3 of 4, plus all 4 free throws to put it away. Just one of those threes for the Cavaliers drops, and it’s a whole different ball game.
Really it was, because this all comes back to the rest argument. LeBron needs to put in heavy minutes for his team to remain even remotely competitive. But he’s not a spring chicken anymore and those heavy minutes in the first three quarters usually means he starts wearing down in the fourth, hence a more underwhelming performance in crunch time. But it’s a Catch-22 - he simply can’t get the rest he needs earlier in the game because so far the evidence shows that Cleveland’s bench will start bleeding almost immediately when he sits.
When scrubs are paid like starters, but don’t play like starters, that’s what you get. J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, and Tristan Thompson are making a combined $37.7 million, but have combined for a grand total of 40 points, for the entire finals. Kevin Love, with another $21 million, has been good for 51 total. That’s 29% of your points, for 46% of your salary. Compared to the GSW, that’s the same production as Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Ian Clark, and David West, who combined for a total cap hit of less than $35 million. That’s a $23 million difference right there - which is not much less than Kevin Durant’s salary of $26 million. His 102 points in the Finals have been…well, Jordan-esque.
We are talking about someone who is in discussion to be the GOAT here, “he choked because he was tired” is really just proving the detractors wrong. I watched the game, the Cavs had the game well in hand in the last minute and a half but one superstar came up big and one didn’t. This is how a tired GOAT performs.
Broken link. I think you meant this.
Woops. Yes thank you, exactly that.
All the LeBron vs. MJ talk is crazy. LeBron has more (maybe much more) basketball ability that MJ had. Michael had a better 15-20 foot jumper, that’s about it. LeBron is not only a scoring machine, he is among the NBA’s best defenders and passers, as well. He’s the best at all 3 on his team. And he’s a better rebounder than MJ, too.
BUT! There is something to be said about LeBron’s desire to distribute the basketball and to diversify his game having an adverse effect on his sheer desire to score. I truly believe he can basically get to the basket and score it at will. MJ didn’t have that kind of ability, but he had the desire.
When Jordan got tired of losing, he sold his share in the team he partially owned and suited up.
When LeBron got tired of losing, he moved.
Remember that time Lebron, in his prime, quit the NBA for two years? I don’t either.