SideshowBob wrote:Pimpwerx wrote:As a Magic fan (all-time favorite player), I idolized the guy who made his team better. The guy who was willing to make that pass to Worthy or Scott on the final play, to win the game. Magic never struck me as someone who liked taking the final shot, unless he had to. I always figured you'd want to avoid a last-second shot anyway, you wanted to be productive enough that you don't have those close calls.
Agree with your points. Makes more sense to avoid a close game situation and try to win the game before the buzzer. It's no surprise that in the last 6.5 seasons, no player in the league (or at least star player) has won more games than Lebron has (playoffs or regular season). He just hasn't been able to replicate that success in the Finals.
However, the media narrative (and thus the armchair expert's opinion) has become that the great players are these last-second heros who hit clutch shots. The misses don't matter, it's all about the willingness to take the shot, regardless of the outcome.
Yup
What is the basis for this?
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Both Wade and Melo would have been better shots than the one he didn't take, but he should have taken it anyway. It's a meaningless game, we just assume he would have wanted to take the last-second heave, since that's what we all would have done. However, is that the mentality of a guy who favors the right play over the big shot?
Great points. That is exactly Lebron's mentality, he'll look to make the game winning play over the game winning shot, however, if that means that he has to take the shot, then he'll take it. There's been countless studies that show that he takes more of those shots than anyone else, and in late game situations, he's actually less likely to pass than even Kobe is. The fact is however, media and public perception do not seem to actually match reality. They're now starting to take the "Lebron's afraid of the moment" stance, despite the fact that this season alone, he's already taken 3 shots with the game on the line, though to his fault, he's missed all 3.
Lebron is a winner. I'm gonna jump to a crazy conclusion and assume that he has the highest win percentages of any current player. He just plain wins more games than anyone else. Doesn't that suggest he's making the right call late in games?
Yup, as I said earlier, since 2006 (his first time making the playoffs), he's won more regular season AND playoff games than anyone else in the league.
Kobe - 54 playoff wins, 89 games, 60.6%
Wade - 34 playoff wins, 60 games, 56.7%
Dirk - 40 playoff wins, 71 games, 56.3%
Lebron - 56 playoff wins, 92 games, 60.9%
I imagine I'll hear that he hasn't won a championship, but would he have won either of those Finals with last-second shots? Was his late-game play the issue in either of the Finals he lost? I don't remember the scores even being close in the '07, and then last year he had a full-game disappearing act, not just late in the games.
The games in the Spurs series were close games. However, late game play wasn't even an issue then, 45% of his points in that series came in the 4th quarter. He may have struggled through the first 3, but he brought it at the end, even if he missed shots at the very end of the game. It also didn't help that the rest of his team went 66 for 170 from the field in the three most important games of the season. You know you're team bad when your star player struggles from the field, shoots just under 40% and still shoots better than the rest of the team.
As for last year, I don't know if you've seen the playoff fourth quarter thread I started on the PC board, but the Dallas series was the worst of his career from basically every aspect; particularly late game play. The chances of him playing that bad again are close to zero, he basically put up half the production of his next worst 4th quarter series.
I feel Lebron has been burdened with being able to do everything Jordan can, eventhough he's never played like Jordan. Even in high-school, he played the same distributor role. He got on ESPN, and half his highlights were slick passes to his teammates who were nowhere near his talent level. If a teenager isn't gonna take the chance to ballhog on national television, an adult version of that same player is not suddenly going to transform into one either.
Asking Lebron to take that last-second heave over the higher-percentage shot his teammate has, is asking him to play 47 minutes and 50 seconds as one player, and then transform into a different player in the last 10 seconds. Most-importantly, it's asking him to do so regardless of the outcome. To a player that values winning above all else, it might not be possible to make that change. Like Magic, Lebron just isn't wired that way. I think he chose the better basketball play, because he wanted to win. If he's put winning above self, there's just no way he would bring himself to take a shot he's deemed poor. I don't think winning less and taking more late-game shots would make him a better player. PEACE.
I think you make great points about how he's wired in regards to the late game shots, but I don't agree with the Magic comparison, even if Lebron himself has brought it up. He's still more Jordan than Magic; the only real similarity there is a 6 8 guy who can play point guard. He still has more of a scorer's mentality and his passing game was largely based around his drive and dish ability early on. We've seen it on the Heat. Despite playing with Wade, he's still the guy taking the most shots, even with him playing more off of the ball this year. He's taken and made tons of game winning shots before, even in the playoffs (6 in the postseason if my memory holds true), and he's going to continue to do so.
I'll say that. PEACE.
