That's playing on horrific teams without a Pippen by your side.
So horrific of a team that no one has won more than 66 games since the '09 Cavs did it? As phenomenal as he is, he didn't win 66 games by himself. They didn't have star power, but they had a cast of role players who did their jobs extremely well.
Obviously I'm not saying LeBron's been a failure, and I'm certainly not saying it's an argument or narrative that I would construct. I'm saying that if one were inclined to do so, you COULD make that argument. It's dumb. But you could make it and not technically be wrong.
Tweeted this yesterday, but IF San Antonio wins and IF Melo goes to Miami, you COULD conceivably construct the following narrative around LeBron's career since 2007:
2007 - Gets swept in the Finals by San Antonio, failed to win a single Finals game in his entire Cleveland career
2008 - Loses in the Eastern Finals to eventual champion Celtics
2009 - Leads Cavs to a 66 win season, #1 overall seed in the NBA, didn't make the Finals
2010 - Leads Cavs to a 61 win season, #1 overall seed in the NBA, didn't make the Eastern Conference Finals, leaves Cleveland via The Decision TV special to join two other All-Stars/future Hall of Famers in Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade
2011 - Loses in the Finals to the Mavs
2012 - Wins Finals in a lockout shortened year
2013 - Wins first Finals in a season which featured an 82 game schedule, but needs Chris Bosh (rebound) and Ray Allen (shot) to make one of the biggest plays in the history of basketball to even force overtime in Game 6 v. San Antonio.
2014 - Loses in the Finals to San Antonio, has to go out and recruit ANOTHER All-Star/Hall of Fame caliber type player to help him win a third ring.
So you'd be looking at a 2-3 record in the Finals, 2 rings (1 coming off a 66 game schedule, 1 coming off an 82 game schedule), and a failure to even make the Finals twice when earning the #1 overall seed. That's...that's something.
Horrific.
not to mention how average the east was and still is
Boston had KG and Pierce
Orlando had Dwight
Atlanta had Josh Smith
Miami had Wade
Indiana had ????
Agreed. Hopefully he sees this and realizes he has to sacrifice to win. He definitely isn't winning in New York anytime soon.
The Heat need Robert Horry.
Buuuuttttt it is ridiculous to talk about it now when there's an amazing Finals going on.
I heard the other night he has the NBA Finals record for steals in a game to compliment his Big Shot Rob moniker.
Yeah there just isnt enough time in the day to squeeze in but the one topic.
Cleveland hasn't made it in 4 years. Look at the shit the Bulls put out there and were a #4 seedyou know how bad you have to be if you are the knicks to NOT make the playoffs in the East? Toronto and Charlotte both made it.
you know how bad you have to be if you are the knicks to NOT make the playoffs in the East? Toronto and Charlotte both made it.
Cleveland hasn't made it in 4 years. Look at the shit the Bulls put out there and were a #4 seed
Lee is in any potential trade to make the salary more even plus isn't an elite player (no one is saying he is) but a 3rd or 4th option on a good team. He would be there to make them more legitimate like he did with the Warriors in their first step to becoming a good team. You can't just magically go from terrible to top 5 in the league… you need building blocks.Again, David Lee is making like $15 million and is injury prone. It would be such a KHANNNNNN-like move to try and "rebuild" around Lee instead of two top 17 picks in the deepest draft in years.
IMO if the Heat got Melo they'd use him in the James Harden sixth man role. Have him play a lot with their (horrific) bench so they don't get killed every time LBJ is off the court. I think him and LBJ are a good fit together too. LeBron loves creating and dishing and Anthony loves to shoot. I don't even know how much they'd play together.
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Lee is in any potential trade to make the salary more even plus isn't an elite player (no one is saying he is) but a 3rd or 4th option on a good team. He would be there to make them more legitimate like he did with the Warriors in their first step to becoming a good team. You can't just magically go from terrible to top 5 in the league… you need building blocks.
They don't want to hit the reset button and bet on people that could be good in 3-4 years again. What do the Celtics have other than draft picks? How many non top 5 picks turn out to be good? You're basically betting on guys who potentially could be good to continue to the cycle of being horrible while giving away Love for nothing more than lotto tickets.
Except it's nothing like the Jrue trade.This is just like the Jrue discussion... How can you say "how many top 5 picks turn out to be good?" when ur main argument against trading picks is a player (Jrue/Lee) who was picked outside the top 5?
The 6th pick this year should be really good. Jared Sullinger is on a rookie contract and a 17/10 guy per 36 already. Add in an expiring contract of Keith Bogans and you now have cleared all the salary cap space, have two borderline all-star players on cheap deals (Sully + 6th pick), and a role player with the 17th. That's as quick of a rebuild as you can have.
brainwashedMo Williams averaged 18 points a game and made the All-Star team. Delonte West was an excellent defender and gave you 12 points, 3.5 assists a game. LeBron was LeBron. Anderson Varejao played great pick and roll defense, made every hustle play you could think of, and was a great rebounder. Ilgasukas stretched the floor and pulled down his share of rebounds. Daniel Gibson was actually still useful as a 3 point shooter. Ben Wallace defended well, too. Like I said, no other star power, but a bunch of guys who were given a job to do and did it well.